The new chief executive of Pakistan’s biggest bank has wasted no time in overhauling it after it was kicked out of the US and fined $225 million in 2017.

A new chief executive is busy rolling out a bold strategy to make it the country’s biggest lender, with the help of some of the savviest names in the business – bKash, Grameenphone and China’s Ant Financial Services.

Sri Lanka’s focus on reforming and liberalizing its economy is bearing fruit, with the country signing new free trade agreements and posting record exports and growth figures. The government is keen to sell down state assets and position the island at the heart of Indian Ocean maritime trade.

It is perhaps no surprise that in a supposedly democratic nation that has been ruled by generals for 33 of its 71 years of independence, the military has an outsized role in Pakistan’s economy.

“As close as lips and teeth”

As a woman running one of Pakistan’s leading banks, Sima Kamil has already made her mark. But her goal is for UBL to snatch top place, elbowing aside HBL, her former employer.

Kamal Quadir has transformed financial services for the poor in Bangladesh with bKash. The mobile payments system is shaping up to be a great success story. Here’s how a child of independence put it together.

Indrajit Coomaraswamy was all but retired when the call came to run Sri Lanka’s central bank. He can’t remember saying yes to the job, but in 18 months, the self-effacing civil servant has given a government on the edge of bankruptcy a new lease of life.

Just when everyone thought India’s state-owned banks were on the path to recovery, a $2 billion fraud at Punjab National Bank has knocked confidence in the whole sector and cast doubts on the government’s ambitious efforts to sort out these ailing lenders once and for all.