For decades, Union Bank of the Philippines has been a worthy medium-sized lender, but little more. Now, it has shaken off its shackles and is investing heavily in technology, with a view to supplanting DBS as the best digital bank in Asia. Can it succeed?

The southeast Asian country was brought to its knees 20 years ago because of the failure of its biggest banks. A generation on, the same clans are back in banking and the regulator says he isn’t fussed.

With its strong growth and rising levels of income and urbanization, the country is attracting plenty of PE. The challenge, both in the private sector and in those SOEs the government is selling, is to find deals that fly.

Myanmar’s central bank governor Kyaw Kyaw Maung has long been seen as an impediment to reform. But come July, he will be out and a new chief will be in, heralding, it is to be hoped, a new era of change

Seven years ago, the country had virtually no formal banking sector. Now, its clunkier commercial lenders face extinction thanks to the arrival of exciting new mobile money services whose mission is to march onwards and upwards.

A novel green loan for Singapore-listed Wilmar has highlighted the dearth of such ESG-based borrowings in Asia, but now that the agribusiness company has provided a template, the onus is on banks and borrowers to push for change in the region.

This is the third year of the drama: as the government desperately tries to untangle its controversial fund before elections are called, Malaysians are asking who’s really paying to clean up the mess.

The Sultan of Johor stresses he needs to earn a living just like his fellow countrymen. His investments, often alongside those of billionaire Vincent Tan, span telecoms, supermarket chains and property. But will the ambitious developments he’s backed in his home state prove a royal flush or a real estate bust?

Though the banking battleground in fast-modernizing Indonesia is new, the combatants include some of its oldest and most controversial business clans.