Both Japan and China are competing for the right to finance and build new infrastructure worth trillions of dollars in the Philippines and other parts of southeast Asia.

Pakistan has long been as enamoured of the BRI as India is suspicious. But BRI-related projects are now springing up in the likes of Bangladesh and Nepal, suggesting that whatever New Delhi’s reservations, the Beijing-led scheme is here to stay

Overlooked during the early years of the Belt and Road Initiative, the region is now central to the entire project. China is shifting its attention south, and it likes what it sees in the Asean zone: lending opportunities, ambitious consumers and fast-growing states and cities.

The link appears to be finally taking shape, but with the dollar as its biggest trading and settlement currency, the scheme looks increasingly skewed towards investors in the US.

Mainland banks have long been known for their penchant to commit chunky amounts to loans, either as participants or as book runners, but that is changing, say loans bankers in the region.

In both China and India, winning approval to sell offshore bonds can be a torment. One regulator applies the rules punctiliously, the other seemingly without rhyme or reason. It’s a wonder issuers can sell so much.

Bank of China International has established itself as the leading investment bank of China’s big four, but what will it take to make BOCI a real challenger to the international firms that it wants to compete with?

Disruptor Alex Kong has already shaken up Asia’s travel industry; now he has the region’s money transfer and payments systems in his sights with his total-solution e-wallet, TNG.

Charles Li has courted controversy in his shake-up of the Hong Kong stock exchange, but is he a plant for Beijing, or a polished professional with a mandate to modernize and internationalize the city’s exchanges?