Coronavirus is cost and opportunity for Asia’s banks
Across Asia, banks are rolling over loans, helping with repayments, and working hard to get deals done: anything to help struggling clients deal with the growing threat from the coronavirus Covid-19. In Singapore, UOB is allocating S$3 billion ($2.14 billion) to...
Alipay partners with WorldRemit to tap into the Chinese diaspora
Alipay is one step closer to e-wallet world domination following a new partnership with online remittances company WorldRemit. The partnership, agreed on the January 22, will allow consumers to use the WorldRemit app or website to send cross-border remittances to...
Luanda Leaks emails show financial institutions still have KYC problems
Isabel dos Santos, chairwoman of Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol When the façade around Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of the former president of Angola, came crashing down in January, those familiar with her reputation, her father and her business interests...
Goldman reveals it’s no longer special
It took 20 years, but Goldman Sachs finally held an investor day. Was it worth the wait? Financial targets – multi-year targets! – were unveiled, although they were largely a recasting of an earlier promise to drum up an incremental...
One size does not fit all, so investors need to work harder on ESG strategies
Every investor wants environmental, social and governance (ESG) exposure, but only the largest have the resources to comprehensively assess this for themselves. As the demand for standardized measurement grows, fixed income in particular has a lot of work to do...
Responsible finance: Goldman pushes change
Goldman Sachs continues to lead on environmental, social and governance issues. In December it announced it will be investing $750 billion in the next decade to fight climate change. Then, at Davos, chief executive David Solomon declared that from July...
Brazil’s biggest banks face cost-cutting challenge
Brazil’s five largest banks need to cut costs by a combined minimum of R$24 billion ($5.7 billion) in the next three years as lower interest rates put pressure on net interest margins, according to a report by the German consultancy...
Emerging Europe: Protecting retail borrowers is a job for politicians, not regulators
A shopping street in Ljubljana How much retail lending growth is too much? It is a question that has been exercising regulators across emerging Europe during the past two years as banks in the region have rushed to offer cash...
History lessons from 2003 for pathogen-hit Asian markets
In 2003, the Hong Kong IPO market, then as now dominated by aspiring mainland corporates, started off with a bang before tailing off sharply as news of a deadly new pathogen emerged. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, resulted in...
Reality bites for China’s rickety local banks
Is this the start, the moment where reality bites, and fear replaces ambivalence? No, this is not about another made-in-China pandemic – though at the time of writing, a rather nasty pathogen, brewed in Wuhan, was threatening to go global....