Retail News CRM

Category: Finance

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Finance news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • UOB Partners to Help Singapore Firms Expand

    UOB Partners to Help Singapore Firms Expand

    The bank has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Singapore Business Federation to connect Singapore businesses to opportunities across Asean, especially in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

    UOB will help more Singapore companies seize cross-border business opportunities as the financial partner of GlobalConnect@SBF strategic partnerships initiative, the bank announced in a statement on Friday.

    Under the agreement, both organizations will share information and resources with Singapore companies, including SBF’s 27,000 members, and provide on-ground assistance. UOB will also provide financial support and help the businesses in their digitalization journey.

    The bank noted that its extensive network and strong presence in Asean will complement the initiative to facilitate Singapore businesses making in-roads into the region, and emphasized the region’s $3 trillion economy and growth prospects.

    Having weathered the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are now looking for growth and expansion opportunities. One of the most compelling opportunities is where UOB has strongest presence – ASEAN, with its fast-growing economy and vast potential, Wee Ee Cheong, UOB deputy chairman and CEO, said.

    Lees ook:

  • HSBC Singapore CEO to Depart for New Role

    HSBC Singapore CEO to Depart for New Role

    He will be taking on a new role at the Saudi British Bank (SABB) – 31-percent owned by HSBC – from April 4.

    HSBC Singapore will be naming a new chief executive to succeed Tony Cripps, who will be managing director-designate and board member of SABB, the bank said in an internal memo signed by deputy chairman and chief executive Peter Wong.

    Cripps was appointed HSBC Singapore CEO in 2017. He was previously chief executive of HSBC Australia, chief executive of HSBC in the Philippines, and held leadership positions in HSBC’s Global Banking and Markets business in London and Hong Kong.

    Wong said that under Cripps’ leadership, HSBC made key people hires, strategic technology upgrades and proposition enhancement, which resulted in strong underlying revenue growth for the franchise and its wider Asean business.

    He added that HSBC will build on the «clear and focused strategy» Cripps developed, as the bank aims to increase its capability and presence across the region.a

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Singapore’s Shopee to Launch Digital Bank in Indonesia

    Singapore’s Shopee to Launch Digital Bank in Indonesia

    Shopee, the e-commerce arm of Singapore’s Sea Group, is planning on transforming Indonesian lender Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi (Bank BKE) into a digital bank, according to a «Reuters» report on Thursday.

    An Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) official said that Shopee has yet to make an official application with the banking regulators, but is «currently preparing the infrastructure» for the transformation.

    The bank, which began operations in 1992, was acquired by Shopee in January from the Jakarta-based lender’s existing shareholders Danadipa Artha Indonesia and Koin Investama Nusantara through its subsidiary Tubro Cash Hong Kong.

    Indonesia is in the midst of preparing regulations for new digital banks, which is expected to be released in mid-2021. A digital lender like Bank BKE would be expected to prepare 3 trillion rupiah ($213.64 million) in capital, the official said.

    Sea – Southeast Asia’s most valuable startup – raised close to $3 billion in a stock offering in December 2020. The company was also one of two to be awarded a license to operate a full digital bank in Singapore.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • HSBC Investment Strategists Named to Expanded Roles

    HSBC Investment Strategists Named to Expanded Roles

    HSBC makes three new appointments to oversee the overall investment strategy across the newly merged wealth unit.

    The bank appoints Fan Cheuk Wan as Asia chief investment officer (CIO) for private banking and wealth management, according to a statement. In her expanded role, she will oversee investment strategies and themes across all asset classes for the bank’s affluent and super affluent segment, Premier and Jade, respectively, in addition to the private banking segment.

    Fan is a wealth industry veteran and joined HSBC’s private banking arm in 2016. She previously worked with Credit Suisse, ABN AMRO, Cazenove, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered.

    In addition, the bank has also appointed Patrick Ho as the North Asia CIO and James Cheo as the Southeast Asia CIO for the unit. This is also an expanded role for Ho and Cheo who previously solely served the private bank.

    Ho joined HSBC Private Banking in 2017 and previously worked with Credit Suisse, UBS, Bear Sterns and BNP Paribas. Cheo rejoined in 2019 and previously worked with Barclays.

    The wealth and personal banking division was created in early last year by merging retail banking and wealth management, asset management, insurance and private banking to create a unit with $1.5 trillion in assets as of the third quarter of 2020.

  • Credit Suisse APAC Profits Slip in 2020

    Credit Suisse APAC Profits Slip in 2020

    Pre-tax income at Credit Suisse’s Asia Pacific unit slipped in 2020 mainly due to higher credit loss provisions.

    Pre-tax income for Credit Suisse’s regional business fell 10 percent year-on-year to 828 million Swiss francs ($921 million), according to a statement, driven primarily by higher credit loss provisions which were offset by higher net revenue.

    Regional revenue grew 17 percent to 4.2 billion Swiss francs, accounting for 20 percent of the bank’s overall revenue with higher contributions from the Greater China region and strong collaboration with the global investment banking business. The region posted 8.6 billion Swiss francs of net new assets in 2020 which included a net outflow of 1.1 billion Swiss francs in the fourth quarter.

    Assets under management for the region stayed flat at 221.3 billion Swiss francs compared to 2019’s 220 billion Swiss francs.

    Globally, pre-tax income was down 27 percent to 3.5 billion Swiss francs due to increased provision for credit losses, major litigation provisions and an impairment to the valuation of a non-controlling interest in York Capital Management.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • HSBC Singapore CEO to Depart for New Role

    HSBC Singapore CEO to Depart for New Role

    He will be taking on a new role at the Saudi British Bank (SABB) – 31-percent owned by HSBC – from April 4.

    HSBC Singapore will be naming a new chief executive to succeed Tony Cripps, who will be managing director-designate and board member of SABB, the bank said in an internal memo signed by deputy chairman and chief executive Peter Wong.

    Cripps was appointed HSBC Singapore CEO in 2017. He was previously chief executive of HSBC Australia, chief executive of HSBC in the Philippines, and held leadership positions in HSBC’s Global Banking and Markets business in London and Hong Kong.

    Wong said that under Cripps’ leadership, HSBC made key people hires, strategic technology upgrades and proposition enhancement, which resulted in strong underlying revenue growth for the franchise and its wider Asean business.

    He added that HSBC will build on the «clear and focused strategy» Cripps developed, as the bank aims to increase its capability and presence across the region.

    Lees ook:

  • Bank Permata CEO to Head Indonesia’s New Wealth Fund

    Bank Permata CEO to Head Indonesia’s New Wealth Fund

    The fund, which currently has around $15 billion in assets, is targeting to grow to $100 billion.

    Ridha Wirakusumah, who has been CEO Indonesia’s Bank Permata since 2017, will become the chief executive officer of the country’s new strategic development sovereign wealth fund, the Indonesia Investment Authority said in an announcement on Tuesday.

    Wirakusamah has held a number of leadership positions in his career, including president and CEO of AIG Consumer Finance Group Asia, Asia Pacific president and CEO at AIG, president CEO for AIG Finance (Hong Kong), head of corporate finance at Banker Trust Indonesia, APAC CEO at General Electric and head of banking at GE Money Asia.

    We want INA to reduce the gap in domestic funding needs and development financing, and provide development financing, especially for national infrastructure,» Indonesia President Joko Widodo said in a briefing on Tuesday.

    The Indonesia Investment Authority’s slate of executives includes Arief Budiman, a former director of oil and gas giant Pertamina, who will serve as deputy CEO. Also joining the fund is Stefanus Ade Hadiwidjaja, previously with private equity firm Creador Capital Group, who will be director of investment.

    Marita Alisjahbana of Citibank Indonesia will be director of risk, while Eddy Porwanto, formerly the chief financial officer of flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, joins as director of finance, the announcement said.

  • Singapore Fintech Partners MoneyGram

    Singapore Fintech Partners MoneyGram

    The integration and implementation of Lightnet’s technology with MoneyGram’s money transfer services will provide customers with a wide selection of payout services across Southeast Asia.

    The Singapore-headquartered fintech company will provide its Bridgenet solution to enable money transfer operators to connect with MoneyGram’s money transfer service, broadening the range of payout services, the company said in an announcement.

    The success of this collaboration reflects Lightnet’s commitment towards improving the efficiency, convenience, affordability and accessibility of cross-border remittances. Lightnet is working tirelessly to make these kinds of services available to everyone, Tridbodi Arunanondchai, group CEO and vice chairman of Lightnet, said.

    Lightnet was co-founded in 2018 by Chatchaval Jiaravanon – a family member of the Charoen Pokphand group in Thailand – and Arunanondchai, a tech entrepreneur and former investment banker.

    The startup raised $31.2 million in 2020, in a Series A funding round led by UOB Venture Management. It also partnered Swiss crypto bank Seba to offer remittance services for migrant workers in Asia, and partnered Velo Labs and Visa to serve the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) lending market.

    Lees ook:

  • UBS Loses Investment Banking Co-Head

    UBS Loses Investment Banking Co-Head

    Swiss bank UBS said the co-head of its investment bank since 2018 is departing, leaving a trading veteran as the sole head of the unit.

    Zurich-based UBS’ Piero Novelli is leaving at the end of next month, UBS said in a statement on Monday, to retire from the banking industry to pursue new opportunities. The 55-year-old was co-head of UBS’ investment bank since 2018, with Rob Karofsky.

    Novelli, a 55-year-old veteran Italian dealmaker and close associate of designated Unicredit boss Andrea Orcel, is leaving in favor of a boardroom career and to teach finance and business, UBS said. This puts UBS’ investment bank into the hands of Karofsky, a veteran trader who has been with UBS since 2014.

    The duo had taken over as co-presidents of UBS’ investment bank when Orcel left three years ago. Novelli’s is the first top management exit for Ralph Hamers, who took over as CEO of UBS three months ago.

  • E-Red Packets Gain Traction

    E-Red Packets Gain Traction

    With physical gatherings limited, red packet gifting via digital channels on the first two days of the Lunar New Year grew considerably from the year before.

    Efforts to digitalize the longstanding custom of giving hong bao (red packets) during the Lunar New Year have been given a boost by the pandemic and limited social gatherings in Singapore, according to local banks, which reported a rise in e-hongbao adoption.

    DBS reported more than 9,000 DBS eGift transactions on Friday and Saturday – a 108 percent increase from last year – and 215 percent more at S$595,000, with some S$2 million loaded on 32,000 of the bank’s QR gift cards compared to S$660,000 on 18,000 QR gift cards in 2020. Transactions on OCBC Bank’s Pay Anyone app rose more than 140 percent compared to last year, while the volume of PayNow transactions made by UOB customers tripled on the first two days of the Lunar New Year from 2020, the banks said.

    Limitations with regard to physical interactions and gatherings, and new cashless habits adopted in the past year among consumers contributed were behind the rise in digital giving, a spokesman for Standard Chartered, which saw PayNow transactions rise 400 percent, told the paper.

    While community transmission of the Covid-19 virus in Singapore is largely contained, households in Singapore are limited to a maximum of eight visitors per day, which has put a dampener on celebrations.

    Despite the rise in digital alternatives, old habits die hard, as evidenced by the efforts of banks that have continued to produce red packets with elaborate designs.

  • Singapore Banks Throw Weight Behind Green Vehicles

    Singapore Banks Throw Weight Behind Green Vehicles

    Ahead of Tesla’s launch in Singapore, DBS is has announced financing for new and used electric and hybrid cars, while a partnership with OCBC will boost the availability of electric vehicle charging points.

    As part of DBS’ efforts to incentivize the adoption of green practices and carbon footprint reduction, the bank is rolling out Singapore’s first green car loan, which is priced at 1.68 percent per annum, it announced on Monday.

    The bank said there is much room for growth, citing Norway’s 54 percent electric car market share, compared to Singapore, where there are 43,000 electric and hybrid cars – only 6.8% of the car population.

    It also said that lending to the electric vehicle instead of the combustion engine vehicle sector has lower environmental and social costs of approximately 40 percent and 16 percent respectively.

    To accelerate the greening of Singapore’s land transport sector, OCBC Bank announced a strategic partnership with Charge+, an operator and provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions that plans to install 10,000 EV charging points islandwide by 2030.

    Under the memorandum of understanding signed by the two parties, OCBC Bank will encourage its property developer and property owner customers to install charging points at their premises, implement digital payment solutions for the charging service, and look into the financing for the infrastructure, an announcement on Monday said.

    Just having the infrastructure is not good enough. There must be public adoption to enable a clean energy transportation system too. OCBC can therefore play the role as a meaningful financial services enabler in the electric vehicle ecosystem, Elaine Lam, OCBC head of global corporate banking, said in the announcement.

    Last week, electric carmaker Tesla began taking orders for its Model 3 Standard Range and the Model 3 Performance in Singapore, which are priced from S$116,334 ($88,000), excluding COE.

    The cars have a Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES) banding, which entitles potential buyers to a S$25,000 rebate. Under the Electric Vehicle Early Adoption rebate scheme announced in 2020, customers who buy a new electric car also qualify for a 45 percent rebate on its Additional Registration Fee, capped at S$20,000.

    The Singapore government in 2020 said it aims to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2040.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • UBS Investment Bank Enjoys Trading in Driving Seat

    UBS Investment Bank Enjoys Trading in Driving Seat

    The exit of Piero Novelli from UBS leaves its investment bank without its weightiest sponsor of deals for the super-rich. The trading business was and remains elementary within the big bank.

    When the 55-year-old Italian dealmaker leaves at the end of next month, he leaves an investment bank that boomed against the backdrop of the pandemic: the unit pre-tax more than tripled last year, thanks to buzzing trading.

    It managed to reduce its cost-income ratio to below 71 percent – unheard of efficiency – and hit a return on equity of nearly 20 percent. The UBS unit also loaded up on risk, adding another $13.2 billion in risk-weighted assets, but dramatically improved the return on them from 8.2 percent to ten percent.

    UBS’ investment bank is in fine fettle because of global markets, the purview of co-head Rob Karofsky. The trading arm – which encompasses equities, debt, foreign exchange, and interest rate products – has posted nearly three times the revenue of the advisory arm overseen by Novelli every year since the duo took over in 2018.

    The relation underscores that the balance of power lies with Karofsky, who joined UBS as head of equities globally in 2014 from Alliance Bernstein, where he held the same role. The 53-year-old American picked up the nickname Killer Karofsky at Morgan Stanley, where he worked until 2005 before heading for Deutsche Bank.

    The market turmoil sparked by Covid-19 gave UBS’ investment bank a timely lift last year: in 2019, the unit foundered in the wake of Andrea Orcel’s absence – reportedly in large part because the notoriously intense Italian banker «had his hands around 10,000 throats», as one UBS banker put it to the Financial Times.

    Novelli was also the bridgehead of an effort begun in 2019 to build a bridge between other super-wealthy private banking clients and the funding needs of private firms. Private capital markets» was rolled out last year with global as well as regional teams under Ros L’Esperance and Javier Oficialdegui, UBS’ global banking co-heads.

    Alan Felder runs a U.S.-based team, Isabelle Toledano-Koutsouris is responsible for Europe, while Nicolo Magni manages Asia-Pacific. The unit doesn’t disclose any metrics, or even examples of deals as Credit Suisse does for an international sales and trading push under Yves-Alain Sommerhalder.

    A UBS spokesman said only the bank was pleased with the private capital market progress. Credit Suisse also bulked out its efforts, under banker Christian Meissner and long-time executive Bab

    Lees ook:

  • ApplePay will now allow users to make purchases using Bitcoin

    ApplePay will now allow users to make purchases using Bitcoin

    Bitcoin is still the most famous cryptocurrency. And at Friday’s close, each Bitcoin was valued at close to $48,000, more than double the valuation of the digital currency about a year ago. Not only can you buy more with your Bitcoins, but you can also find it easier to spend thanks to the Apple Pay mobile payment service. The BitPay wallet app’s Prepaid Mastercard can be added to the Apple Wallet and Apple Pay can help Bitcoin owners spend the cryptocurrency online, through apps or in a store.

    The BitPay wallet app not only works with Bitcoin, but will also work with Ether, Bitcoin Cash and as well as the dollar-pegged stable coins USD Coin, Gemini Dollar, Paxos Standard and Binance USD. The stable coins are based on a 1:1 ratio with the U.S. Dollar. For every Gemini Dollar in circulation, there is a corresponding U.S. Dollar held by the State Street Bank and Trust Company.

    There are plans in the work to add support for the BitPay Wallet by the end of next month with other mobile payment services Google Pay and Samsung Pay. This will allow Android users to more easily spend Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies including the aforementioned names that are pegged to the U.S. Dollar.

    To add your BitPaycard to Apple Wallet, you need to have the latest version of the BitPay app. The latter, which can help you securely store, spend, and manage Bitcoin, can be installed from the App Store and the Google Play Store. BitPay CEO Stephen Pair (both of him) said, “We have thousands of BitPay Wallet app customers using the BitPay Card. Adding Apple Pay and soon Google and Samsung Pay makes it easy and convenient to use the BitPay Card in more places.”

    Apple should do even more when it comes to digital currencies; should Apple add a cryptocurrency exchange it could generate over $40 billion. RBC analyst Mitch Steves believes that this would allow Apple’s shares to rise 25%. RBC noted that “Square takes in $1.6 billion a quarter through bitcoin-trading revenue from its roughly 30 million active users. Apple has an install base of about 1.5 billion people, signaling that it could make up to $40 billion a year from a Wallet-based crypto exchange.” The report adds that “if Apple went down this path, the USA would likely acquire the most crypto assets from a global perspective. If the USA owns the most crypto assets (be it Bitcoin or other assets), it would not make logical sense in our view to ban it. In addition, with Apple’s secure and world-class software, the USA would be able to have confidence in user information and balances if needed in the future.”

    Apple’s big move comes right after Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed interest in cryptocurrency Dogecoin. Tesla says that it soon will accept Bitcoins as payment toward the purchase of a Tesla vehicle. RBC’s Steves notes that the combination of Apple’s interest in Bitcoin and Apple’s popularity in the tech world can help the U.S. become the technological leader in cryptocurrencies for as long as the next 20 years.

    Thanks to the Blockchain technology, the method used to keep track of Bitcoin transactions, using the cryptocurrency is secure. Data on transactions is kept inside blocks and when a block is full, it is chained to the previous one. If someone wants to steal Bitcoin and hacks into the Blockchain to alter the information in one the blocks, it can’t be done without all members of the Blockchain spotting the changes. There are smartphones that can store and verify cryptocurrency transactions such as the HTC Exodus 1s.

    Lees ook:

  • Over 100 Financial Firms Hit by DDoS Attacks

    Over 100 Financial Firms Hit by DDoS Attacks

    More than 100 financial firms were victims of distributed denial-of-service attacks by the same threat actor with North America and Europe overwhelmingly making up the dominant share, according to a recent report.

    Cyber intelligence sharing group FS-ISAC said that over 100 financial services firms were targets of a wave of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks – a method of overloading a web system with requests in order to prevent it from functioning properly.

    Interestingly, the report claims that the attacks were conducted by the same threat actor within a short period of time.

    The criminals sent extortion notes threatening to disrupt the firms’ websites and digital services, the report said. The threat actor methodically moved across jurisdictions in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, hitting dozens of institutions within weeks.

    According to the report, North America and Europe made up an overwhelming share of the DDoS attacks with 43 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Asia (15 percent) and Latin America (3 percent) made up less than one-fifth.

    By sub-sectors, retail banking dominated the list, accounting for 41 percent of the DDoS attacks. This is followed by exchange (15 percent), payments (13 percent) and, securities and investment (10 percent).

    In 2021, we have already seen new cyber threats in the form of supply chain attacks, which we can expect to proliferate and evolve quickly, said FS-ISAC’s chairman of the board Jerry Perullo  «The only way to stay ahead of these ever more sophisticated threat actors is to collaborate. Now more than ever, we need global leaders to model what effective sharing looks like to the rest of our community as well as the industry at large.

  • Crypto Firm Nabs Ex-HSBC Banker as CEO

    Crypto Firm Nabs Ex-HSBC Banker as CEO

    A British banker is taking over the top job at Valour, a Swiss start-up that plans to expand a zero-fee bitcoin exchange-traded product across Europe.

    Zug-based Valour is naming Diana Biggs as its CEO, effective immediately, it said in a statement. She is the former chief of innovation at HSBC’s private banking unit and a cryptocurrency backer of the earliest hour.

    Biggs is the latest banker to leave traditional finance for digital assets, which is a booming industry in Switzerland thanks to friendly regulatory handling. Diana is the perfect candidate to lead the company through this next phase of growth and expansion, Valour founder Johan Wattenstrom said.

    Founded three years ago, Valour in December launched a fee-less digital asset product that trades on the Nordic exchange’s growth index, NGM. The start-up manages nearly $30 million and plans to roll out more exchange-traded notes at other European venues in the coming months.

    At HSBC, Biggs led fintech partnerships and championed open innovation. Prior to joining the British bank, she worked for digital currency platform Uphold, e-commerce startup Soko, and spent nearly five years as a consultant at Oliver Wyman.