Asia Pacific

The bank’s full-year results for 2020 suggest bad-loan generation is manageable and that brighter times lay ahead – but we still do not know the whole story about borrowers under moratoria.

East Capital co-founder Karine Hirn began her investing career in Russia in the 1990s before moving to China to head up the firm’s Asian expansion. She discusses the challenges of the Chinese market, why eastern Europe has the edge on corporate boards and why governance is key to ESG.

What does the political turmoil in Myanmar mean for the country’s banks?

A fintech built by a team of former Deutsche bankers in Singapore has became the first recipient of investment and partnership from Marketnode, a new venture between Singapore Exchange and Temasek.

It’s an asset class that took years to establish itself in China and Asia. But investors are turning their attention to an asset class that promises chunky returns without the risk borne by primary buyout funds.

Diversification has insulated Australia’s sovereign wealth fund through a difficult year.

We’ve tokenized currencies, dentistry, even pandas (no, really). What next? Whisky. We all need a drink.

One impact of the pandemic in Asia is that it is going to make for a radically different Chinese New Year.

The founder of Ant Financial disappeared for three months after Chinese regulators nixed the firm’s record-breaking IPO. Despite some unwise comments about state banks, Jack Ma is now back, looking as puckish and cheery as ever.

More Asian entrepreneurs are going to New York to raise money for Spac listings. Should Singapore’s SGX seek to intercept these listings?

To have one of your leading shareholders demand an extraordinary general meeting is unfortunate – two looks like a pattern. Japanese corporate giant Toshiba is facing a messy situation.

Wong’s departure from HSBC, where she was head of Greater China, in August 2019 raised the questions of where could she be going and why. The answer is that she will succeed Samuel Tsien as OCBC’s chief executive. What does it mean for the bank?

After seeing its IPO scratched, China’s Ant Group may have thought that things couldn’t get any worse. But they have, as Beijing takes a hammer to the humbled financial technology firm.

Xinja wanted to be different, but Covid hit at the worst possible time – after it had launched a high-interest deposit business, but before it had offset that with lending.

Morgan Stanley mourns its top investment banker in the country.

The Singapore-based bank believes it is the first in the world to launch a fully-fledged exchange for digital assets, including tokenization, cryptocurrency exchange and custody.

Macquarie’s cherished reputation for being able to adapt to changing circumstances has been put to the test like never before by Covid-19.

International business bails out the domestic struggle for MUFG.

The worst is over, but bad loans are back on the agenda at China’s largest lender.

Inclusivity takes a back seat to pandemic preparedness in a tough year, but it remains on the agenda for the Chinese bank.

DBS has suffered, but its model looks well placed in this environment.

Khara takes charge of a bank with unique challenges.

Goldman Sachs has been waiting 16 years for the right to run a wholly owned business in China. It is now a big step closer to realizing the dream.

The last-minute decision by a unit of China Construction Bank to cancel a trailblazing digital bond sale on a virtual exchange in a Malaysian island tax haven appears connected to a Chinese clampdown in the wake of the axing of Ant Group’s IPO.

China has done very well out of Singapore’s new digital banking regime, with Ant and Tencent both represented. Grab and Singtel fly the local flag.

Over the course of five working days in November, Chinese legislators got more done than most US presidents achieve in an entire term in office.

SCB pays the price for its Royal connections.

Nobody had more to lose from the suspension of the Ant float than the bookrunners, in particular the joint sponsors. They had closed books on a record deal that looked good not just for them and Ant but for the Greater China capital markets. There are many questions about what happens next: how should Ant be reshaped to revive the listing and who should share the blame for not responding to shifting regulatory sands?

China’s decision to scrap Ant Group’s IPO made headlines around the world. But why did the Party act so late and why is it so concerned about Ant? Euromoney looks at the reasons behind the decision and asks what the future holds for a firm hemmed in by a raft of new rules on everything from online lending to anti-trust and data privacy.

Trade deal brings together 15 Asian nations; banks jostle to benefit.