Asia Pacific

JPMorgan’s blockchain units have launched a new validation solution called Confirm. It is another small step towards mainstream use of the technology in payments.

Corporates have a variety of tools at their disposal when it comes to getting around regulatory restrictions relating to cross-border liquidity and currency management.

Francesco de Ferrari gave up a plum private banking job at Credit Suisse to take over troubled AMP. It was always a tough ask. Personnel mis-steps did not help, but in the end there was not going to be much of a business left for him to run.

Buying a 10% stake in China Merchants Bank’s wealth management arm for $415 million gives JPMorgan greater access to China’s vast private wealth market. It is a deal that benefits both parties, and underscores JPMorgan’s quiet but concerted success story in Asia’s largest economy.

A pivotal US banker in coup-stricken Myanmar goes offline as his bank is engulfed by crisis.

The Indonesian Investment Authority is the world’s newest sovereign wealth fund. Its chief executive and the chair of its supervisory board, who is also the minister of finance, explain why the fund will do more than just raise money – and why the ghost of 1MDB is never far away.

Outwardly different, Singapore and Dubai have transformed themselves into international wealth management hubs, overseen by clear-minded regulators. They are now starting to compete for business with Europe’s far older private wealth centres.

Activist investor victory may open the floodgates for shareholder challenges against Japanese corporate management.

Investment bankers head for the exit at Australian business.

Recent reports by UBS and consultancy Bain set out to explain who China’s high net-worth individuals are, what kind of private banking services they want and how local and global lenders can best serve them.

Singapore always knew its fintech superstar might ditch the city state’s exchange in favour of US markets. Now it looks like Grab will do so through a Spac – the biggest yet – as Asia joins the Pipe party.

UBS has applied to buy out two minority investors in its China joint venture, boosting its stake in Beijing-based UBS Securities to 67%. The bank’s strong and long-standing relationship with the owner of the other 33%, a division of Beijing local government, is a timely reminder that there is no one right model for success in China.

Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund had a grim 2020, not helped by a far-too-heavy concentration on domestic assets. Does this justify the speculation that its chief executive won’t have his contract renewed?

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted corporates to look afresh at automation and efficiency in their processes. Deutsche Bank sees a gap – even in currency-restricted markets.

Deliveroo’s pending stock sale gives London a much-needed financial boost, but the global IPO market is becoming a straight fight between China and the US.

The ‘bad bank’ asset management company recently launched in the Philippines has not just been designed to make life easier for the banks, it could boost growth as well.

Clubhouse, the San Francisco-based app, is the cool new thing, a unicorn valued at more than $1 billion. On Friday in Singapore, a group of DBS analysts and economists got together on the audio-only platform to discuss the future of electric vehicles. The debate was chatty and inclusive, and a sign of things to come.

A new study finds that Temasek and GIC were in almost two thirds of sovereign wealth deals in the year to September 2020.

Citi’s new CEO Jane Fraser set out her vision statement this week. It was solid stuff, but Euromoney suggests some bolder moves for the US bank in Asia, including a secondary local listing, and the creation of a new position of co-CEO, to be installed in a region vital to the bank’s future.

The RMB7 billion emergency loan handed out by the New Development Bank to China this week will be the last of its kind, the Shanghai multilateral’s CFO Leslie Maasdorp tells Euromoney.

The Malaysian lender has reached a $700 million settlement with the Malaysian government. It draws another line under 1MDB, but Najib’s trials will rumble on.

The full-year results of DBS, OCBC and UOB marked the first time in a year the Singaporean banks had attempted to give any kind of media briefing face-to-face.

OCBC, UOB and DBS are among the first lenders in Asia to report 2020 numbers. They’re in surprisingly good shape.

The Australian financial services company has announced a profit guidance upgrade prompted by a win from its commodities business thanks to the crisis in Texas. It’s a bad look, but it illustrates both a complex and flawed market, and a bank with a great eye for a niche.

HSBC has been talking about pivoting to Asia for decades. Now, it doesn’t just mean Hong Kong and its immediate surroundings. It is about time.

Narendra Modi’s decision to privatize two state-owned banks is significant, but the shortlist suggests the ones on sale are going to be small in scale but big in non-performing loans.

That China wants – needs – to put its own spin on the events surrounding Ant Group’s failed IPO last year is clear from recent leaks by mainland officials.

Laos has twice postponed a bond that it badly needs to issue. A small country with few financing options, hit by Covid, downgraded and in debt to China – its problems are not unique.

Nicolas Aguzin, the new head of HKEX, is respected in China and internationally, but challenges lie ahead – not least that of turning the city into a global capital markets hub.

At least four of Ang San Suu Kyi’s most senior economic officials are missing since Myanmar’s February 1 military coup.