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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.

  • Deutsche Bank Adds Greater China Wealth Vet from HSBC

    Deutsche Bank Adds Greater China Wealth Vet from HSBC

    Deutsche Bank has hired a former HSBC executive as a managing director in its wealth management unit.

    Tse Yi-Mun joins Deutsche Bank Wealth Management as a managing director and group head for North Asia, according to a statement.

    Based in Singapore, she reports to North Asia head of wealth management Kanas Chan.

    Tse has 23 years of private banking experience, most recently with HSBC Private Banking where she was its market head for Hong Kong. Previously, she also worked for DBS and ABN AMRO covering the Greater China market.

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  • Prospective Suitors Ready for Citi’s Asia Retail Sale Deadline

    Prospective Suitors Ready for Citi’s Asia Retail Sale Deadline

    Binding bids for Citigroup’s retail assets across Asia are due within the coming week with interest drawn from both fellow global banks and local players.

    Binding bids for Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand are due on Friday, according to a «Bloomberg» report citing unnamed sources, with offers for India due next week. Deliberations are ongoing and potential buyers could decide not to proceed with their offers.

    This is part of Citi’s ongoing plans to unload its retail assets in 13 markets across Asia and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa with its Australian unit sold to NAB in August.

    A sale of Citi’s Taiwan retail assets could raise about $2 billion to $4 billion, according to the report, depending on which assets are included.

    In April, Taiwan’s government said it would monitor and prevent Citi from transferring high net worth clients to its units in Hong Kong and Singapore.

    Banks planning to make bids include DBS, Standard Chartered, Cathay Financial Holding Co, and Fubon Financial Holding Co., the report added.

    Citi’s Thailand assets is valued at over $2 billion with Bangkok Bank planning to make an offer.

    Mitsubishi UFJ-owned Bank of Ayudhya is also weighing a bid.

    The Indonesia unit is valued at as much as $1 billion with DBS planning to make an offer.

    UOB and Malayan Banking are also making considerations on bidding.

    The Philippines unit is also valued at as much as $1 billion with BDO Unibank, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co, Bank of the Philippine Islands and Union Bank of the Philippines all making considerations on extending an offer.

    Valued at about $2 billion, Citi’s India consumer assets are expected to attract a bid from Kotak Mahindra Bank.

    HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are also weighing bids.

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  • UBS Strengthens Australasian Equities and Research Unit

    UBS Strengthens Australasian Equities and Research Unit

    UBS has hired four new executives and promoted two others for its equities and research team in Australia and New Zealand. John Storey joins as a banks analyst from J.P. Morgan in South Africa and Richard Schellbach joins from Citi in London as an equity strategist, according to UBS.

    Storey and Schellbach were hired to replace Jonathan Mott who left to join startup bank Barrenjoey Capital Partners and Pieter Stoltz, current head of quantitative strategies at fund manager Eley Griffiths, respectively.

    In the global markets division, UBS also hired Tom Tepaa, who joins the block trading desk from Goldman Sachs in Singapore, and David Nicholson who joins the Australian equity sales team from Citi in Boston.

    In addition to new hires, UBS has also announced two promotions for its New Zealand business.

    Thomas Buchanan will relocate from Hong Kong to become New Zealand head of distribution and Will Becker was named New Zealand head of sales trading for global markets.

    The latest hires follow the exodus from UBS’ investment banking unit dubbed bloody Monday after a flurry of executives left to join Barrenjoey Capital Partners in March.

    After the poaching spree, UBS Australasia co-chief executive Anthony Sweetman vowed to offer top dollar to rebuild the team, boasting that the bank was consistently the higher payer in the industry in an interview and that this would not change for the regional market.

  • Ripple and Tranglo Expand Partnership

    Ripple and Tranglo Expand Partnership

    Its growing cooperation follows Ripple’s acquisition of a 40 percent stake in Tranglo to scale the footprint of RippleNet in APAC and beyond.

    Tranglo has launched its first live On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service on RippleNet to enable instant and low-cost cross-border payments in the Philippines, with plans to introduce more ODL corridors in the months to come, Ripple said in a statement on Thursday.

    Tranglo has also established multiple fiat connections with existing RippleNet customers, including BKK Forex, DeeMoney and Siam Commercial Bank, which will allow it to process multiple currencies in Asia Pacific, including Philippines Peso and Thai Baht.

    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 strong traction with Tranglo in the past 6 months alone is testament to how we’re executing well on our shared mission to transform the cross-border payments experience in Asia Pacific, a region which is often tricky to navigate, Brooks Entwistle, RippleNet managing director in APAC and MENA, said in the statement.

    Ripple noted that APAC is one of the fastest-growing regions for RippleNet, with transactions growing 130 percent year-over-year.

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  • Singapore Banks Joins China’s Wealth Management Connect

    Singapore Banks Joins China’s Wealth Management Connect

    DBS and OCBC have announced partnerships as part of the cross-border wealth management scheme between Hong Kong and China.

    DBS Bank (Hong Kong) will be working with the Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC), while OCBC Wing Hang Bank, OCBC’s Hong Kong subsidiary has tied up with China’s Ping An Bank to provide wealth-management services in the Greater Bay Area under the Wealth Management Connect scheme.

    The link, which was announced in September, residents of special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau will be allowed to buy investment products from the remaining nine Greater Bay Area cities, and vice-versa.

    A total of 300 billion yuan ($46.5 billion) has been set as the aggregate quota for the two-way channel – 150 billion yuan each – with a limit of 1 million yuan per individual investor.

    DBS Hong Kong is the group’s largest franchise outside Singapore, while PSBC is one of the largest state-owned banks in China, targeting agriculture, rural areas and farmers, urban and rural residents, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises.

    Greater China is the second-largest market for OCBC after Singapore, while Ping An is among the top banks in China.

    However, DBS is currently only allowed to sell products via the southbound route, while OCBC can provide two-way services under the scheme.

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  • VN-Index slips in narrow band

    VN-Index slips in narrow band

    Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index fell 0.01 percent to 1,395.33 points Tuesday, continuing along with a narrow band near the 1,400-range resistance.

    Last-minute selling pressure pulled the index down by 0.2 point. It has been fluctuating within a three-point margin for the past six sessions, after surging to the 1,390-range on Oct. 11.

    Trading value on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the index is based, fell 14 percent to VND20.34 trillion ($899 million).

    The VN30 basket, comprising the 30 largest capped stocks, saw 17 tickers in the red, led by STB of Ho Chi Minh City-based lender Sacombank with a 2.6 percent drop.

    GAS of state-owned Petrovietnam Gas dropped 1.7 percent after hitting a new peak Monday.

    VRE of retail real estate arm Vincom Retail fell 1.6 percent to the lowest in over a week.

    MSN of conglomerate Masan Group lost 1.4 percent, while HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group fell 1.2 percent.

    Foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of VND470 billion, with the strongest pressure on HPG and VHM of real estate giant Vinhomes.

    The HNX-Index for stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid and small caps, rose 0.55 percent while the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market gained 0.23 percent.

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  • Hong Kong and Macau Announce Wealth Connect Bank List

    Hong Kong and Macau Announce Wealth Connect Bank List

    China’s two special administrative regions announced their list of eligible banks to participate in the cross-border wealth management scheme.

    In Hong Kong, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Citi and more were amongst those on the list of 19 approved banks, according to an announcement yesterday from the city’s central bank.

    Three banks – Bank of East Asia, DBS and Dah Sing Bank – were only allowed to sell products via the southbound route.

    Considering that it will be the first time for retail investors to conduct cross-boundary investments, we will closely monitor the operation of the cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect and step up investor education and investor protection work together with the industry, said Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Eddie Yue Wai-man in a statement.

    Concurrently, Macau’s central bank also announced its list of seven lenders approved for the cross-border scheme earlier this week.

    Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank, China Guangfa Bank, CMB Wing Lung Bank, ICBC and Luso International Banking were approved to launch services in the Wealth Connect program as of yesterday, according to the Monetary Authority of Macau. z

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  • UBS Asset Management Appoints Australasia Country Head

    UBS Asset Management Appoints Australasia Country Head

    UBS Asset Management has named a new country head for Australia and New Zealand.

    Alison Telfer has been named to the role, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.

    She has 20 years of asset management experience, most recently with Blackrock where she was its chief operating officer, general counsel, and head of public policy for Australasia.

    Telfer’s strategic mindset coupled with her extensive Asia Pacific asset management experience will be valuable in helping her position UBS Asset Management for the future, said UBS Australasia joint-country head Nick Hughes.

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  • Deutsche Bank Hires Ex-Bank of Singapore MD

    Deutsche Bank Hires Ex-Bank of Singapore MD

    A former managing director from Bank of Singapore has joined Deutsche Bank’s wealth unit in Singapore.

    Deutsche Bank Wealth Management hired Faye Lee as a managing director, according to a statement, tasked with covering ultra-high net worth clients in Southeast Asia.

    Based in Singapore, she joins a team led by Southeast Asia head Shang-Wei Chow and reports to group head of Southeast Asia Terence Leong.

    Lee has over 17 years of wealth management experience, most recently with Bank of Singapore where she was a managing director. Previously, she also worked for ING Asia Private Bank, prior to OCBC’s acquisition in 2009, Citi and HSBC.

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  • StanChart Enters BNPL Space With Atome Investment

    StanChart Enters BNPL Space With Atome Investment

    The bank has entered a 10-year multi-product strategic partnership with Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) brand Atome to deliver a wide range of financial services to consumers and merchants across key markets in Asia.

    The partnership, which aims to deliver mobile-first financial services for consumers across Asia, includes a planned $500 million financing to support Atome Financial to expand its regional ecosystem of merchants and customers.

    The partnership will initially include BNPL services, targeting to roll out in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in the next few months, and later expand to include digital lending products, according to an announcement on Wednesday.

  • UOB Launches Platform for Energy Efficiency Projects

    UOB Launches Platform for Energy Efficiency Projects

    The platform will be launched first in Singapore, with subsequent roll-outs in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

    UOB is launching an integrated financing platform U-Energy to drive the development and adoption of energy efficiency projects for buildings and homes, as part of its Smart City Sustainable Finance Framework.

    The bank highlighted that buildings and construction projects globally account for 38 percent of carbon emissions and that this is a key area to address to meet Singapore’s target of reducing carbon emissions by 36 percent from the 2005 levels by 2030.

    Building owners, energy service companies, and homeowners can reduce an average of 20 percent in energy consumption by tapping on its green financing for energy efficiency projects under U-Energy, UOB said.

    UOB noted that building owners and homeowners often lack financing support and the expertise to find the right energy service companies.

    At launch, the platform will have nine energy service companies that customers can tap for energy efficiency projects, such as chiller and air conditioning efficiency, installing solar panels on rooftops, switching to LED lights, optimizing energy and power management systems, and changing the building façade to reflect direct sunlight to reduce heat absorption, as well as replacing elevators with energy-regeneration technology.

    UOB previously launched integrated financing platforms for solar energy and electric vehicles under the bank’s Smart City Sustainable Finance Framework

  • Ex-Hang Seng CEO Passes Away

    Ex-Hang Seng CEO Passes Away

    The former chief executive of Hang Seng reportedly passed away last week at the age of 57.

    Louisa Cheang Wai-man passed away last week, according to a statement from Hang Seng.

    The bank first disclosed that Cheang was undergoing treatment for a medical condition in July 2020 before she took a three-month leave of absence in May which was extended in August when the bank announced HSBC Hong Kong CEO Diana Cesar as her successor, effective September 1.

    Cheang has served as Hang Seng’s CEO and vice-chairman since July 2017 following the retirement of Rose Lee Wai-Mun. Prior to the appointment, Cheang worked for parent group HSBC where she held senior roles like group general manager and group head of retail banking. She first joined HSBC in its credit card department in 1999.

    At Hang Seng, Cheang is credited with pushing a number of key initiatives including gender diversity and digital transformation.

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  • Call For Rise in Banking Salaries

    Call For Rise in Banking Salaries

    Bank employee representatives have set their demands for this fall’s wage negotiations. Their objective is to raise salaries at the lower end.

    The Swiss Bank Employees Association is advocating a general wage increase and raise of at least 2.2 percent, or 300 francs a month for bank employees, according to a statement Thursday.

    The call is the outcome of a salary survey among more than 4,000 employees and a meeting of employee representatives in mid-September. The boost would help those on lower wages, in particular, the statement says.

    The association points out that while wages in the banking industry are rising, on the whole, not everyone is seeing the benefit. On an individual level, only 32 percent of respondents got a boost in 2021, down from 37 percent in the last survey.

    Banks were profitable, despite the Covid 19 crisis, and results from this year have continued to be good, with most banks having saved costs from people working from home.

    Next year the association will focus on fair and transparent rules for the wage-setting process.

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  • UOB and ADDX Partner on Sustainability-Linked Bond

    UOB and ADDX Partner on Sustainability-Linked Bond

    This initiative comes amid a rise in the use of digital securities to enhance the efficiency of bonds and other fixed-income instruments.

    UOB and ADDX have completed the digitization and digital custody of a S$50-million portion of the $675 million sustainability-linked bonds recently launched by Sembcorp Industries, according to an announcement on Thursday.

    The ten-and-a-half-year bond is due in 2032 and has been priced at a coupon rate of 2.66 percent per annum if Sembcorp meets a sustainability performance target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions intensity.

    UOB highlighted the benefits digital bond issuance brings to corporate clients, including faster processing and lower cost in the custody and administration of the bond.

    In the past year, digital securities have achieved a high level of acceptance among blue-chip issuers of bonds and other securities globally, noted ADDX.

    As digital bonds enter a phase of widespread adoption, the cost of fundraising through bonds and other fixed-income instruments will continue to fall, and companies that embrace the new technology will be able to raise capital more efficiently, Oi Yee Choo, ADDX chief commercial officer, said.

    Founded in 2017, ADDX, previously known as iSTOX, is a full-service capital markets platform with MAS lice

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  • China’s Fintech Crackdown Not Over Yet

    China’s Fintech Crackdown Not Over Yet

    The governor of the country’s central bank said it would be taking more steps to curb monopolistic behavior among internet platform companies and strengthen consumer privacy and data security.

    We will continue to cooperate with anti-monopoly authorities to curb monopolies and actively deal with algorithm discrimination and other new forms of anti-competition behavior, Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said on Thursday.

    Yi added that the country would be strengthening the regulation of the payments sector and require all financial services companies to be licensed, Yi said at a Bank for International Settlements conference.

    According to the governor, financial businesses must be licensed to operate, firewalls must be set up between different parts of the business to prevent cross-sector risks, and the direct link between non-banks and banking information services must be cut.

    China’s once-flourishing fintech industry has been hit by a wave of regulation. State authorities forced Jack Ma’s Ant Group to cancel its much-awaited initial public offering last fall, and peer-to-peer lending, once booming in in the country, is now virtually nonexistent.

    The crackdown has also extended to the wider tech industry, with tightened restrictions in numerous areas such as payment links to financial products, collection of customer data, credit scoring services and overseas listings.

    In recent months, authorities have also introduced new rules to regulate the online gaming, after-school classes, and entertainment sectors.

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