Top Stories
Top Stories
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Several Chinese bubble-tea makers are looking at Hong Kong IPOs. When high-end tea maker Nayuki listed three years ago the market drank it up, but the deal now trades 90% below its listing price. Can a new group of issuers revive the market?
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A lack of consensus on whether recent under-performance of Asian currencies will impact China’s willingness to let its own currency weaken is leading to disparate views on near-term valuations.
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As Japan puts an end to the global negative interest rate era, its central bank's QE programme remains in place and may be a model for peers. Investors maintain a bullish outlook on the stock market.
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Stock market reform has not only revitalized the country's capital markets but has also permeated the real economy. Countries like Korea are quickly following suit. Interestingly, China also seems to be drawing inspiration.
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In the wake of heavy losses and mis-selling to retail investors, there is an urgent need for an overhaul of risk management in the banking sector.
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Chinese fintech Ant Group has offered UBS a reported $250 million for Credit Suisse’s China joint venture, outbidding Citadel Securities. It is a timely reminder that despite its current malaise, Asia’s largest economy is still a great long-term place to invest.
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As Beijing works to underpin the equity market, China's fund houses and investment banks are betting on exchange-traded funds as the next big thing. That reflects a market corseted by regulation, where limited options compel a collective herd mentality.
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Many factors explain Japan’s renewed allure to global corporate and financial institutions. Inbound FDI is rising, with local stock prices regularly hitting record highs. Is the economy’s long-awaited renaissance a passing phase or here to stay?
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With its economy embattled and investors fleeing in droves, getting good data on China has never been more important. There are some great analysts and research shops out there. Trouble is, too many China-facing reports suffer from a lack of imagination, groupthink brought on by a fear of irritating Beijing and an over-reliance on state data. That must change.
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At the start of 2023, analysts sized China and liked what they saw: an economy reopening after three years of Covid isolation, and ready once again to roar. Nothing of the sort has happened and corporates and institutional investors are now fleeing the market in droves.
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Restrictions may come at a cost as MSCI considers developed market status.
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As the Chinese property crisis deepens, a new round of bank-led rescue efforts is on the horizon. While banks must shoulder part of the blame for the crisis, their options for action are limited.
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The travails of Zhongzhi, a key player in China’s poorly regulated $3 trillion shadow financing market, underline why a future crisis in the country is more likely, not less.
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The great and the good have assembled again for the Global Financial Leaders investment summit in Hong Kong.
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Rakuten needs money – and lots of it – as its mobile telecommunications arm continues to burn cash. But it is running out of things to sell, while its debt profile is miserable.
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While the dollar’s international supremacy is unchallenged for now, the wider landscape is shifting. Companies are raising more funding in renminbi and the currency’s use in international payments and settlements is growing.
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A local asset management company in Liaoning province just bailed out Shengjing Bank – by borrowing the capital it needed from the very same ailing regional lender.
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Global banks spent years trying to make China’s vast market work for them, mostly in vain. Today, though, China’s manufacturers are investing in Europe and the US, and turning to Western lenders for advice. The real China opportunity starts here.
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Pressure is growing on Japan’s self-imposed caps on government bond yields. Positive rates must be around the corner, but what will that mean for banks and public debt?
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While foreign investment in China has fallen, supply-chain shift is a different story. Rather than transferring their main production away from China, manufacturers are cultivating deep regional supply chains across Asia and beyond.
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MUFG’s vast balance sheet has the potential to make a considerable difference to Japan’s net-zero ambitions. But the bank won’t be pulling back from polluters, arguing that money needs to flow to where emissions are, not away from them.
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The enormous re-listing of Arm Holdings is unrepresentative in many ways, but it still contains a valuable lesson for those coming down the pipe.
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HKEx chief executive Nicolas Aguzin opened the group’s latest new office in London on Wednesday. His aim: to get more global firms to IPO in Hong Kong and convince investors to put money to work there. But against the backdrop of China’s economic situation, his team will have its work cut out.
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The Japanese bank sees Greenhill as the missing M&A piece in its US product offering. Asiamoney speaks to the New York-based CEO of Mizuho Securities US operations Jerry Rizzieri, and US head of investment and corporate banking, Michal Katz, about the bank’s ambitions.
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Don’t expect a flood of IPOs, but there are still placements across Asia Pacific.
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Yet another multi-billion-dollar loss on investments in SoftBank’s Vision Funds speaks to a malaise that is hurting the tech teams of investment banks in Asia.
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The southern Chinese city has set out ambitious plans to become one of the world’s top wealth-management centres. With one of China’s largest onshore pools of private wealth, there is everything to play for.
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The Korean government and the central bank will have their work cut out for them in 2023. They must overcome a loss of trust and criticisms over raising rates too quickly if they want to keep the economy humming and avoid a new crisis.
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South Korea must do more to address diversity in the workplace. A few of the country’s banks are leading by example.
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CTBC Bank is quietly making inroads in its quest to be a regional banking powerhouse, through strategic acquisitions and big international expansion plans.
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Hong Kong’s tough line on Spacs is intended to protect investors and stop low-calibre companies from getting a listing via the backdoor. With just two Spac IPOs so far in the city, the asset class has struggled to attract the kind of enthusiasm seen in other markets such as the US.
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The Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar – and the question of its survival – is once again a hot topic. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever before.
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The combination of China’s crackdown on technology companies, its zero-Covid strategy and its domestic property crisis have buffeted Chinese stocks this year. In order for sentiment to stabilize and for the economy to develop, reforms are needed urgently, putting more emphasis on the private sector and less on GDP growth.
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Within two years, virtual bank WeLab has quickly found its place in Hong Kong. But its chief executive says this is just the beginning of an ambitious plan to expand its foothold in Asia.
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The outlook for the Chinese real estate sector is bleak, with many more highly indebted companies expected to default on their bonds and loans. If the market is to recover, however, the government will need to ease more restrictions so that firms can access funding again and demand for homes picks up.
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With its razor-sharp focus on SMEs, technology firms and ESG, Busan Bank has come a long way in the last 50 years, and is moving in the right direction.
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Sprawling conglomerates dominate South Korea’s economy, making it hard to retool a creaking economic model. With a presidential election looming and financial technology firms growing, the market is ripe for disruption.
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MUFG Bank is investing in its Greater China business, but will its strategy pay off?
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Two critical developments in China caught the financial markets off guard in 2021.
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The coronavirus pandemic has unearthed a wave of anti-China sentiment across the world, impacting Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. Will BRI have a future in a post-pandemic world? A veteran banker at HSBC says yes – but the shape it takes will be vastly different.
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In a novel twist to digital banking, Taiwan’s FEIB is leveraging the wide reach of social media networks to turn clients into bankers and branch managers.
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Some of China’s largest state-owned companies have become bond market pariahs after a spate of defaults. This may be just what the country’s markets need.
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The new entrant in Hong Kong’s competitive banking sector is using innovative marketing and customer perks to make a name for itself.
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Hong Kong must improve its environmental track record and rally the private sector if it is to succeed in its ambition of becoming Asia’s leading centre for green finance.
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A sudden spike in Covid-19 cases is set to dent growth in Taiwan – and test banks’ ability to do business virtually.
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China’s crackdown on its biggest technology companies shows the difficulty of balancing growth at all costs at the leading fintech firms with support for state-owned banks.
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A global competition is under way to define the future of money – and the bet is overwhelmingly on China to get there first.
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Consolidation of its regional banks could provide a solution for some of the country’s biggest problems. Can the new prime minister pull this off?
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Japan still lags much of the world it comes to gender equality. But bankers are leading the change.
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How should investors incorporate political risk into their view of asset markets?
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Kakaobank did not exist four years ago. Now, it is an integral part of Korea’s banking sector. The next big step for the digital dynamo is its $3 billion IPO, slated for late 2021.
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Too many Chinese investors focus on the originator more than the asset pool. That undermines one of the crucial purposes of securitization.
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China’s decision to clamp down on Ant Group has derailed an IPO of at least $34 billion, despite execution being finished last week. The move appears to be little more than political muscle-flexing by Beijing. The real winners will be the country’s critics.
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Ant Group’s choice of Hong Kong and Shanghai for its listing signals how flush the two markets are with liquidity. But the upcoming US presidential elections have issuers worried.
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Creative strategies to avoid the appearance of non-payment are becoming more common in China’s domestic bond market. That leaves many investors at a disadvantage and uncertain of their rights.
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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.
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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.
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The bank has put international expansion at the centre of its strategy, and will not be deterred, despite a worsening trade war and the spread of the coronavirus.
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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.
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Family offices in China have grown from practically nothing 15 years ago to a hyper-competitive industry now. Zhang Yong, a former private banker who set up one of the country’s biggest multi-family offices, shows how the market has developed.
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Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s leading financial centre is being undermined by politics. Can it survive?
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Foreign banks hoping to break into China’s capital markets will have their chance at the end of 2020, but muscling in on primary capital markets could prove expensive and risky.
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New banking rules have blown the competition wide open in South Korea, allowing banks to piggy-back off each other’s client relationships by offering a better mobile app.
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South Korea’s banks are looking overseas for opportunities and faster profit growth now that their domestic market no longer offers the revenues and excitement it once did.
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The economy is suffering as months of protests show no sign of abating. Banks have been targeted by demonstrators. So far, its financial markets have been largely unaffected. But surely it is only a matter of time before Asia’s greatest financial centre suffers too?
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Hong Kong’s Financial Services under-secretary is a rare species: a government official willing to talk to the media, despite holding such a tough job of keeping the SAR’s markets operating smoothly in a time of chaos.
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As well as investing heavily in digital in-house capabilities, this Taiwanese financial instiution is keeping an eye out for acquisitions – and, in turn, Asia and international banks should keep an eye on it.
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At the forefront of the trend toward a more environmentally friendly financial system, Development Bank of Japan combines making a profit with a commitment to making an impact for good.
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The first Chinese bank to sign the Equator Principles, Industrial Bank has led the development of the green financing market.
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Haitong's ambition and aggression has helped shape Asia's financial system, and made it a mainstay of Hong Kong's capital markets.
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Japan's Mizuho is one to watch in the region as it builds on its domestic strength to move into overseas markets.
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CTBC has expanded strategically across southeast Asia, but now needs to develop its presence in China to make it a leader in regional banking.
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The bank's international strategy is on a global scale, but its expansion plan in Asia is the one to watch, as it aims to reshape the region's financial system.
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Rivals did not pay much attention to CMB up until 2017, but since then its stock has almost doubled, and now all eyes are on this Chinese financial institution.
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With its commitment to sustainable finance, Agricultural Bank of China is helping shape Asia's financial system.
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With 10 million-plus customers and only two years under its belt, this purely digital bank is one to watch in South Korea – and beyond.
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With its lack of drive and direction, shareholders of the Japanese financial institution look on nervously as the investment bank faces questions about its future.
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This financial institution is clearly one to watch on a global scale, thanks to its presence in 57 countries and domination of the renminbi clearing market.
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This financial institution is one to watch – if you can find its hiding place.
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Just 35 years in the making, ICBC is the world's largest bank – and is continuing to shape the global financial system to also become the best.
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Nomura hopes a more efficient structure can help it win private banking business and investment banking mandates on the global stage.