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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.

  • Fintech Firm Partners Alipay for Remittances

    Fintech Firm Partners Alipay for Remittances

    Tranglo will facilitate cross-border remittances to users of Alipay, who will be able to receive quick and secure money transfers within the app. Southeast Asian Fintech company Tranglo is partnering payment and lifestyle giant Alipay on cross-border remittances, the firm announced on Thursday on its blog.

    Tranglo said the service enables more inclusive money transfers across borders to a range of customers and hopes the service will be able to benefit Asian migrant workers, who frequently send money back home. The company already has a number of partnerships with local partners.

    Tranglo called it a significant milestone, noting Alipay’s user base of more than 1.2 billion customers globally, together with its local e-wallet partners.

    Founded in Malaysia in 2008, Tranglo operates a cross-border payment hub that provides smart services for mobile airtime top-ups, as well as foreign remittance and business payments.

    The firm’s remittance service works in 21 currencies and has 1,300 payout partners. As of 2019, it has processed $4.66 billion in transfers, according to its website. The company has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, U.A.E., London and Jakarta.

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  • UOB Invests in Thai Fintech

    UOB Invests in Thai Fintech

    The funds will be invested into the Stellar Network, the blockchain technology underlying Lightnet’s platform, as well as to build a «next-generation financial mobility network.»

    Bangkok-based fintech Lightnet has raised $31.2 million in a Series A funding round led by UOB Venture Management, the private equity unit of UOB, the firm announced in a statement on Friday.

    Other backers include Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, HashKey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital and Hanwha Investment and Securities.

    According to its website, the company aims to disrupt the global remittance market by using smart contracts and distributed ledgers to replace the SWIFT system and underground banking. It is currently focusing on the millions of unbanked migrant workers in Southeast Asia, which rely on costly, slow, and fragmented services for cross-border remittances.

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

    «We project that within three years, Lightnet will facilitate over $50 billion worth of annual transactions through our industry-leading partner network,» Arunanondchai said.

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  • StanChart Invests in Chinese Supply Chain Platform

    StanChart Invests in Chinese Supply Chain Platform

    Its investment aims to enhance its joint supply chain ecosystem proposition and provide suppliers with access to affordable and convenient financing.

    Standard Chartered has made a strategic investment into Linklogis – the bank’s first investment in a supply chain platform in China, as well as the first global bank investor in Linklogis, the bank announced in a statement on Thursday.

    The bank said the investment reinforces its efforts to support China’s opening by facilitating the flow of capital, especially in Greater China. It will leverage Linklogis’ technology to «provide large corporate buyers with greater visibility and transparency of their extensive network of suppliers, as well as cheaper and easier access to financing for suppliers further upstream,» the announcement said.

    Standard Chartered will explore also new opportunities with Linklogis, including the extension of these solutions to support cross-border flows, it added.

    The move follows a memorandum of understanding signed between the two parties in February 2019 to jointly develop and deliver a supply chain financing proposition and the completion of several joint deep-tier supply chain financing transactions.

    «Providing deep-tier supply chain financing is a key priority in our strategy to support our clients’ entire sales and distribution network,» Simon Cooper, CEO of Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking, Standard Chartered, said.

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  • All-Digital Bank to Launch in Philippines

    All-Digital Bank to Launch in Philippines

    Tonik, the first pure-play digital bank in Southeast Asia, will debut in the Philippines in 2020.

    Tonik Digital Bank has received a banking license from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippines’ monetary authority, the bank announced in a statement on its blog on Thursday.

    This would allow Tonik to provide a full range of retail banking services, focused primarily on retail deposits and consumer loans, through its digital-only platform, which will be launched in 2020, the statement said.

    The bank said it is «on a mission to revolutionize the way money works in Southeast Asia.» It provides retail financial products, including deposits, loans, current accounts, payments, and cards on its digital banking platform.

    Tonik said the banking market in the Philippines is «ripe for disruption,» highlighting opportunities in the $140 billion retail deposit market and a $100 billion unsecured consumer lending, and the country’s world-leading internet and social media use.

    Additionally, Tonik noted that 70 percent of adults in the Philippines are unbanked, while over half of existing bank clients would switch their deposits to a pure-play digital contender, citing market research.  Two virtual banks – CIMB Bank and ING Bank – currently operate in the country.

    «Digital-only banks globally have successfully demonstrated their ability to take massive market share by launching hyper-compelling consumer propositions, while also operating at disruptively low unit costs, and thus generating outstanding Returns on Assets and Equity,» said CEO and founder Greg Krasnov, who previously co-founded fintech startups in Asia, including CredoLab, AsiaCollect, AsiaKredit, and SolarHome.

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  • Thailand Cannot Push Digital Banking with Central Bank Alone

    Thailand Cannot Push Digital Banking with Central Bank Alone

    Thailand hopes to match the rapidly rising global standards in digital banking but Bank of Thailand’s governor notes that it will take more than just the efforts of the central bank.

    Veerathai Santiprabhob said the central bank will look to launch electronic lending and other financial services this year through a collaboration with various parties. Though he did not disclose details, the BoT governor stressed that collaboration between government agencies is critical, according to a report.

    It cannot be the central bank alone, he said.

    Digital banking in Thailand is feeling the tailwinds, despite the lack of independent virtual lenders seen emerging in neighboring financial hubs. UOB was the latest reported entrant into the country with the launch last year of its first mobile-only bank, TMRW. Local lenders, too, are making digitalization inroads with one player reportedly reaping the success of applying gamification in its business.

    Although Thailand has digital banking ambitions, Veerathai is cognizant of the gap between its market and other rival players in Asia. He highlighted data from non-financial sources, an electronic identification system and a suitable regulatory framework as three key pillars required to build virtual banks.

    At this stage, Thailand might not have the ecosystem ready like in Singapore or Hong Kong, where the digital banking system is in better shape, he said.

    When we talk about digital banking licenses, we want to have a new financial services provider that can serve the currently underserved, meaning that you have to be able to meet the needs of people on the street, people from far, far away, Veerathai said.

    Whilst access to the unbanked market is undoubtedly an attractive proposition, Veerathai acknowledged the challenges required to evaluate borrowers’ creditworthiness due to insufficient data available.

    This can come from when customers use mobile phones, the way they conduct their business using the digital footprint ecosystem, he added.

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  • VietinBank profits surge 83 pct

    VietinBank profits surge 83 pct

    VietinBank, Vietnam’s third largest bank by asset, has reported an 83 percent increase in pre-tax profits to almost VND11.5 trillion ($495 million) in 2019.

    Its chairman, Le Duc Tho, said at a forum on Tuesday that assets rose 6.5 percent to VND1,240 trillion ($53.29 billion). Its bad debts ratio was under 1.2 percent, down from 1.59 percent in 2018.

    Credit growth during the year was 7.2 percent.

    The bank targets 6-8 percent growth in assets this year, 8-10 percent credit growth and an increase in pre-tax profits of 10 percent. It seeks to keep bad debts under 2 percent.

    Le Minh Hung, Governor of State Bank of Vietnam, said the government has approved capitalizing of VietinBank’s 2017 and 2018 profits.

    The lender has been seeking to increase its charter capital in the last few years, but Tho said profits would only meet a third of the increase it plans and needs government approval to hike its capital through other means.

    Vietinbank, in which the government owns 65 percent, has not increased its capital of VND37.23 trillion ($1.62 billion) since 2014.

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  • Former HSBC Heavyweight Joins OCBC

    Former HSBC Heavyweight Joins OCBC

    OCBC has hired former HSBC Greater China CEO to lead a new wholesale banking unit. OCBC has appointed former HSBC Greater China chief Helen Wong as deputy president and head of global wholesale banking, The veteran with 35 years of banking experience will take the role starting from 3 Feb, 2020.

    Helen is widely regarded as a top female banker in Hong Kong with deep Greater China experience and extensive market knowledge, said OCBC group chief executive Samuel Tsien in a media statement on Wednesday.

    Wong was appointed group general manager of HSBC Group in 2011 and her last position was chief executive of HSBC Greater China, based in Hong Kong. She had held various senior management positions in corporate and investment banking at HSBC, including president and chief executive of HSBC China and head of global banking (Hong Kong).

    In her new role at OCBC, Wong will undertake global responsibilities for all banking relationships with small- and medium-sized enterprises, large corporations and financial institutions, two product groups – cash management and trade under the transaction banking business, as well as the investment banking business.

    At the same time, Ching Wei Hong, currently the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, will be re-designated as Deputy President, said the local lender.

    This is to reflect his global responsibilities for the wealth management business, private banking under Bank of Singapore, affluent banking under OCBC Premier Banking and OCBC Premier Private Client and personal banking.

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  • Citi To Hire 2,500 Coders This Year

    Citi To Hire 2,500 Coders This Year

    Citigroup’s investment bank plans to recruit 2,500 programmers this year as technology reshapes the business. The move should save as much as $600 million in 2020.

    Citi intends to beef up the unit that houses its traders and investment bankers with coders and data scientists.  The Institutional Clients Group (ICG) arm, which already has 23,000 technology specialists in its ICG business globally, said the new roles will be in London, New York, Shanghai, Toronto, Dublin, Tel Aviv, Pune and Chennai in India, and Tampa, Florida.

    The hires reflect what we are building in technology and why we are focused on making salespeople and traders more effective at servicing our clients, said Stuart Riley, Citi’s global head of operations and technology.

    About three-quarters of the company’s trade orders last year were electronic, according to Riley. Technology is augmenting what humans do by making better use of data.

    Citigroup budgets roughly $8.5 billion, or about 20 percent of total expenses for technology every year. Bank of America Corp has said it spends approximately $10 billion on technology, with about US$3 billion allocated to new projects.

    Global banks are investing billions in a race to apply technologies that make front-office staff more efficient and keep clients trading.  Other firms that are hiring as computer specialists include Goldman Sachs Group Inc and J.P. Morgan.

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  • Tycoon Gives $9 Million on Twitter to Test for Happiness

    Tycoon Gives $9 Million on Twitter to Test for Happiness

    Japanese online retail fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa will conduct the social experiment in a serious attempt to observe if the payments boost happiness.

    1,000 individuals randomly selected amongst his Twitter followers who retweeted a January 1 post will each receive 10 million yen ($9,157), according to Maezawa’s YouTube post. The founder of Japan’s largest online retail fashion platform, ZOZO, said he hoped the exercise would draw interest from academics and economists.

    According to Maezawa, the experiment intends to mirror the social policy concept of periodic no-strings-attached payments to all citizens – with backing from the likes of U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Maezawa added that he felt obliged to run such an experiment and inspire greater debate over the merits of such a policy as he «has the money and free time» to make such payments.

    Maezawa, estimated to have a $2 billion net worth, is renowned for chasing his passions and interests with relatively limited restraint. In 2017, he reportedly spent $110.5 million on a 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting «Untitled» – an amount which would break his last record set in May 2016 when he paid $57 million for another untitled Basquiat.

    His chase extends beyond art and luxury to the adventurous as Maezawa in line to be the first private passenger to fly around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. On the political front, Maezawa also expresses greater adventurism, using his platform to consider ideas not only like basic income theory but also a world without money.

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  • StanChart Launches Public Real-Time Tracking of Cross-Border Payments

    StanChart Launches Public Real-Time Tracking of Cross-Border Payments

    Standard Chartered ups the transparency of global payments with the introduction of a public portal for real-time tracking.

    The new portal, SC GPI Track will trace cross-border payments processed through the bank’s major clearing centers to their clients and from them to their corporate and retail clients. According to Standard Chartered, the launch makes it the first the bank to introduce such a payment tracking platform well ahead of the SWIFT November 2020 payments confirmation mandate – an initiative aimed to make it mandatory for all financial institutions to confirm to beneficiaries when a cross-border has been credited to their account.

    By entering SWIFT unique end-to-end transaction reference (UETR) linked with the cross-border payment, Standard Chartered clients and their counterparties will be able to obtain the real-time status of payments.

    SWIFT’s chief business development officer, Alain Raes, underlined that the sector has long wrongly believed that technology was the hindrance to enhanced cross-border payment capabilities when it has instead been a case of lacking progressive thinking at financial institutions. Recorded data is major evidence against believers of tech headwinds in payment speed – 50 percent of gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries within five minutes, on average, and 50 percent are credited within 30 minutes.

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  • Bank of China Approved for Saudi Branch Launch

    Bank of China Approved for Saudi Branch Launch

    Bank of China has been approved by Saudi Arabian authorities to open a branch in the kingdom, in yet another move towards further internationalization.

    Saudi Arabia’s cabinet approved the Chinese lender’s license, according to a report citing a tweet from the state news agency SPA.

    Bank of China joins a wave of Chinese firms seeking to expand in Saudi Arabia, its close strategic ally and top oil supplier. Saudi Arabia is undergoing major reforms to diversify the economy away from energy in a grand strategy called «Saudi Vision 2030». Four years ago, rival lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, launched its first branch in Riyadh.

    Capitalizing on Saudi Arabian opportunities aside, the branch launch marks another step towards for China towards further internationalization through its financial entities. In December last year, Bank of China launched its first branch in Romania through the capital of Bucharest.

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  • UBS Revamps Wealth Management

    UBS Revamps Wealth Management

    UBS is restructuring its private bank, the first major move under new co-head Iqbal Khan. The move dramatically reduces the influence of two veterans of the bank.

    The Zurich-based wealth manager is making a host of changes three months into the tenure of Iqbal Khan, who joined from Credit Suisse, as co-head of its private bank.

    The biggest changes? Breaking up its European, Middle East, and African business, which dramatically curbs the purview of current head Christine Novakovic, into three parts. She is left with the EU piece including a Frankfurt hub for Europe, while Caroline Kuhnert takes on Central and Eastern Europe. Ali Janoudi will run UBS’ business in the Middle East and Africa.

    UBS is also combining a specialty unit that tailors products for the ultra-wealthy, led by veteran Christian Wiesendanger, with a markets team within its investment bank. Wiesendanger, who took over sole leadership of the unit just over one year ago, will be offered a new, as-yet-undisclosed new role at UBS, Khan, and co-head Tom Naratil said in the memo.

    The duo said the move is a bid to speed up how it makes decisions, limit duplication, and delayer, which generally means cutting jobs. Khan and Naratil made no mention of specific cuts. UBS plans to dismiss as many as 500 bankers as a result of the changes.

    The move is the second leg of UBS’ referral of some of its super-rich and family office clients back into the regions. UBS’ top executive for the super-rich, Josef «Joe» Stadler, is coming away from the revamp with a mandate to expand the bank’s business with wealthy families, including in the U.S.

    We are pleased to announce that we will accelerate decision-making and time to market by delayering, reducing organizational duplication, and increasing business unit autonomy, which comes with more accountability, Khan and Naratil wrote to staff.

  • StanChart Hires Technology Risk Expert

    StanChart Hires Technology Risk Expert

    The bank has brought on board a financial and telecommunications services technology risk, regulatory and security leader to support its business, functions and regions.

    Standard Chartered has hired technology expert David McLinton as its global head of Operations, Information and Cyber Security (ICS), effective 06 January 2020, subject to regulatory approvals, the bank announced in a statement on Wednesday.

    McLinton has over 25 years of industry experience joins from Singtel, where he was head of its Asia Pacific cybersecurity team. He was previously chief information security officer for Asia Pacific and Latin America for J.P. Morgan Chase.

    The position is based in Singapore. McLinton reports to Yuval Illuz, group chief information security officer and chief operating officer, Trust, Data and Automation.

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  • Singapore Digibank Applicants Total 21

    Singapore Digibank Applicants Total 21

    The Monetary Authority of Singapore received 21 digital bank applications, the regulator said on Tuesday.

    This comprises 14 applications for the digital wholesale bank licenses and seven applications for the digital full bank licenses. The majority of applicants are consortiums, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement, without naming the entities.

    The new digital bank licenses have attracted strong interest from a diverse group of applicants, ranging from e-commerce firms, technology, and telecommunications companies, fintech – such as crowd-funding platforms and payment services providers – as well as financial institutions.

    MAS is issuing up to five digital banking licenses by June this year – up to two full-bank licenses that permit retail banking, and up to three for wholesale banking.

    The new digital banks are expected to start their operations by the middle of 2021. This liberalization move – the biggest for the financial sector here since 1999 – was first announced by the MAS in June last year. Applications closed on Dec 31, 2019.

    Applicants that have expressed their interest publicly include Ant Financial, Grab and Singtel, Razer’s consortium, the V3 Group linked to entrepreneur Ron Sim,  Temasek-linked supply chain finance firm Sheng Ye Capital, and a consortium led by Hong Kong’s AMTD Group.

  • HSBC Cuts ATM Services After Vandalization

    HSBC Cuts ATM Services After Vandalization

    HSBC will suspend overnight ATM services at 19 clusters in Hong Kong as a means of avoiding damages following reported vandalism against the lender perceived to be complicit in anti-protestor activities.

    The 19 clusters were pinpointed due to their closeness to popular locations for pro-democracy activities. These locations will be closed from 8 pm to 6 am on Fridays, weekends, the days before and on public holidays until further notice, according to an HSBC statement.

    This follows multiple acts of vandalism against the bank on New Year’s Day and Christmas Eve, reportedly by black-clad anti-government proponents. Most notably was damage done to the famous pair of lions that guard HSBC’s headquarters, after they were doused in flammable liquid and set alight. The bank subsequently closed two branches and seven ATM clusters.

    Whilst attacks against banks have been largely limited to Chinese state-owned lenders, the latest acts of vandalism against HSBC are widely believed to be due to perceived links between the London-headquartered financial giant and pro-Beijing efforts to stifle dissent. Such accusations were made following local police’s decision to freeze around HK$70 million ($9 million) of funds used to support the anti-government movement in Hong Kong. The account owner, Spark Alliance HK, is a renowned anti-government group set up in 2016 to support protestors.

    HSBC has repeatedly denied political involvement and recently said it was «saddened and disappointed by the acts of vandalism at its Mong Kok branch, which included graffiti that read «revenge for Spark Alliance.

    According to HSBC, its decision to comply with police instructions was not politically motivated but falls in line with global regulatory standards.

    We understand there is concern about the account closure. We closed the account in November following fund transfer instructions from the customer as the account was not being used for its stated purpose,» the bank said in a statement, according to a report.

    In December, we received notification from the enforcement agency regarding the handling of its account balance. As an international bank, the decision to close the account was in accordance with global regulatory standards. Global regulators require banks to perform due diligence reviews on customer accounts regularly.