The opening up of the Chinese financial sector to majority foreign ownership is an important and strategic move, but the guidelines curtailing banking sector liberalization make it look like one step forward, two steps back.

The Hong Kong stock market is finally shaking off its image as a home for unloved Chinese IPOs.

The country’s lenders face depressing conditions in their home market, with negative interest rates, razor-thin net interest margins and an ageing population. If they want to lift profits, they have little choice but to expand offshore, despite numerous hurdles.

Two former debt bankers – one a globetrotter, the other a lifelong Japan specialist – head Barclays’ Japanese investment banking business and present a formidable double act. Rivals may snipe at Barclays’ diminishing presence in Japan, but Kentaro Kiso and Tetsuya Kodama tell Asiamoney how they intend to play to their strengths.

Hong Kong-headquartered CLSA voted the best in Asia for equity research and sales in the largest-ever Asiamoney equities poll.

Within the space of a few weeks, Woori Bank, South Korea’s second-largest lender, was slammed in parliament, lost a chief executive and prompted an investigation into hiring practices that may suck in the entire financial industry. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

Vehement opposition to the latest dual-class share proposal from the institutional investor community means HKEX will have to go back to the drawing board.

Thailand’s infrastructure is in dire need of an overhaul. The ruling military junta hopes to solve that problem with a host of big-ticket projects – some PPPs, others funded by China. But that is just the start of the problem for a financially and demographically stressed country likely to grow old before it gets rich.

Regulators had high hopes when China’s free trade zone bond market was launched last year, but there are now doubts about the market’s future.