Asia Pacific

From wealth management products to enterprise financing solutions, China’s Greater Bay Area offers myriad opportunities. As regulators continue to inch open the door to cross-border transactions, it falls to bankers to champion the liberalisation of data, capital and talent flows – and capitalise on the cross-border region’s undoubted promise.

The success of e-CNY, despite its retail characteristics, could be attributed to a strong government push, effective collaboration with banks and e-platforms, and, most importantly, a win-win mentality that inspired the two-tier channel design.

In 2010, Soumya Rajan was a senior private banker at Standard Chartered in Mumbai. Then she quit to set up Waterfield Advisors, a multi-family office and wealth advisory firm which now helps Indian families manage US$4.3 billion in assets. She tells Euromoney why wealth management in India is so exciting, which factors are driving new money creation – and why so many private banks are so bad at serving women.

In a deal that has reshaped Hong Kong’s IPO landscape, China’s home-appliance giant Midea successfully raised $4.6 billion in September, marking the city’s largest offering in years. From showcasing Midea’s transformative B2B growth to navigating the complexities of the listing process, Euromoney explores the key factors that led to the company's triumphant debut – and its implications for the future of Hong Kong's IPO market.

With Swiggy and Hyundai Motor India filing for big-ticket IPOs, India’s primary capital markets are on a tear. This could be the best year for listings in its history. Can it continue? A useful parallel for global investors can be drawn with China 20 years ago, when the Asian superpower’s markets suddenly sparked into life.

Balancing growth and risk is a delicate task for banks. By understanding client needs and leverage their technology capabilities, banks can not only maintain this balance but also tap into new opportunities in emerging industries. The partnership between Deutsche Bank and Chinese fintech XTransfer, highlighted by their recent success in Thailand, serves as a prime example of how tailored solutions and innovative processes can drive growth and operational efficiency.

Digital banks often struggle with soaring customer acquisition costs in saturated markets. Hong Kong’s ZA Bank, which announced its first monthly profit last week, can offer valuable lessons for firms navigating similar challenges.

Nearshoring has become a topic that is discussed so often – and applied to so many issues – that it seems to be everywhere, and nowhere at once. Euromoney talks to banks operating in the Mexican market to find specific examples of new business being generated by nearshoring.

Its acquisition of Citi’s retail banking business in the Philippines has proven to be a challenge. It has put pressure on the bank’s capital buffers, while Citi’s high-end customers have shown a preference for international players.

Transaction banks in Asia will have to up their game to satisfy corporates who now view a strong digital offering as a prerequisite to maintaining relationships.

Guidelines published by China’s cabinet pledged to boost the quality of its capital markets. But they neither understand nor trust the vibrant-yet-turbulent nature of that financial system.

Huge international debt capital market issuance in September and October is forecast as investors may seek to take any US Treasury benefit through wider spreads.

A perfect storm – triggered by the Sahm Rule, AI-driven transactions and the unwinding of the yen carry trade – sent the Japanese and global stock markets on a wild ride. While the Bank of Japan gains more flexibility to raise rates after the unwinding, investors remain optimistic about the long-term prospects of Japanese equities.

India’s first international financial services centre was created by premier Narendra Modi in 2008. Today, Gift City is a flourishing hub near Ahmedabad in the country’s arid northwest. K Rajaraman, chair of the International Financial Services Centres Authority, tells Euromoney why the zone is vital to India’s financial and economic aspirations.

When Piyush Gupta was named chief executive of DBS in 2009, the Singapore lender was going nowhere in particular. He gave it drive and direction, buying assets around Asia and transforming it into the world’s best bank. A series of tech outages put him in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, but Gupta will leave DBS in March with his head held high and his legacy intact. His capable and charismatic successor Tan Su Shan, the first woman to run southeast Asia’s largest bank, has big shoes to fill.

Senior Indonesian officials have floated the idea of transforming the island paradise into a private-wealth hub to rival Hong Kong and Singapore. Jakarta certainly needs to do something to ensure that more of the wealth created onshore stays onshore.

New highways, bridges and tunnels make travelling in Mumbai easier than it has been in decades. A new metro line is set to open in late 2024, but the city can still be gruelling to navigate. If it wants to be a global financial hub, there is still so much more to do.

As multinationals navigate the complexities of developing Asian businesses – amid supply-chain reconfigurations, the rise of sustainable financing and the penetration of e-commerce – treasurers are playing a bigger role in strategic decision-making.

Despite Asia boasting the world’s highest mobile payment penetration rate, digital banks in the region have failed to meet expectations. Traditional banks in many Asian markets no longer view them as serious competitors. What explains this underwhelming performance and are there any exceptions?

India’s wealth-management sector is growing fast, with new advisory firms constantly springing up. This is catnip to private equity firms keen to invest in the best growth-oriented private banks. But who will win this race and who will fall short?

HSBC’s choice of a new CEO to replace Noel Quinn was long flagged. Elhedery’s fortune is to be handed the reins of power in an extended period of calm for the UK lender, which benefited immensely from Quinn’s calm stoicism. But deteriorating Sino-US relations mean that turbulence for the London- and Hong Kong-listed lender is sure to return.

The Singapore state-owned fund has unveiled plans to invest $10 billion in India and to plough more capital into the US and Japan. At the same time, it is quietly retreating from China, once its largest investment market, but now beset by underperforming capital markets, weak growth and bleak consumption data.

President Xi Jinping’s ‘great rebalancing’ is creating a two-speed China: one a stodgy economy; the other full of export-focused corporate superstars. To serve the latter, China’s banks must invest overseas by buying assets or opening branches – and they need to do so fast.

The bank’s decision to sell a large minority stake in Credit Suisse’s former China JV to BSAM, a Beijing-based fund it has known for decades, is a setback for Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities. The US firm is still committed to expanding in China’s troubled market.

Mamerto Tangonan, the deputy governor and head of the payments and currency management sector at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, tells Euromoney how southeast Asian countries are using advances in digital payments to revolutionize cross-border transactions.

Euromoney recently sat down in Dubai with the heads of investment banking for HSBC in the Middle East. The conversation focused on the burgeoning trade and deal flow between the Gulf region and Asia, what investors on both sides are looking for and why they like what they see.

The South Korean automaker is on track to raise upward of $3 billion via the listing of its India unit in Mumbai. If successful, it will surely compel more global firms to raise capital in south Asia’s largest market.

MBridge, China’s cross-border digital currency initiative, has entered the minimum viable product stage. It is the world’s most advanced cross-border CBDC and stands on the cusp of playing a pivotal role in the de-dollarization process.

Hefty convertible bond sales by the likes of Chinese firms Lenovo and Alibaba, plus renewed interest in issuance from corporate Japan, have the market chattering. Is the market here to stay in Asia, or could a single soggy offering cause it to slam shut again?

The prospect of interest rate cuts from the Fed in 2024 is disappearing. Japan and Korea are among those feeling the heat.