Coronavirus

It has been a pattern in Indonesia for the best part of 15 years: whenever southeast Asia’s largest economy is engulfed in crisis, it turns to Indonesia's minister of finance – but she has never faced a challenge like this.

Local firms have rapidly gone from being a reliable source of liquidity for dollar loans to taking a big step back from lending this year. The worst may be over, but cash is no longer king – caution is.

Street protests and a pandemic have forced Hong Kong’s bankers and investors to experiment with how they work and raise funds for clients – their innovations have been surprisingly successful and could well outlast the crises.

Chinese issuers responded to Covid-19 by selling bonds that were designed to help fight the pandemic – in reality, only a fraction of the money raised was used to tackle problems created by the virus.

Banks in Bangladesh were struggling with poor performance even before coronavirus spread to the country; the pandemic is worsening the impact of a recent policy misstep.

Asia’s first virtual roadshows have paved the way for a new digital approach to IPO executions; they are a necessity at the moment, but they could become the new normal.

Covid-19 has pushed down global stock markets, led to alarming projections about global growth, and forced millions out of work and most of the rest to work from home. Asiamoney considers the likely impact on banks in the region

Digital banks have long talked about the importance of efficient online and mobile banking services at the expense of face-to-face meetings and physical branches; the coronavirus crisis means there is now little argument against this model.