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  • Vietcombank Remittance Company bags two int’l awards

    Vietcombank Remittance Company bags two int’l awards

    Vietcombank Remittance Company was awarded the “Excellence Money Transfer Company” and “Best Home Payment Service Provider” titles by U.K.-based Global Banking and Finance Review magazine.

    Global Brands Magazine (GBM) is a prestigious U.K. online publication and forum for top brands of the global business community. The winners are selected based on commitments and efforts in the pursuit of outstanding values including: innovation, quality, increasing brand awareness, technology application, risk management, customer service, that promote the dynamic business environment of the remittance industry in Vietnam.

    To meet the above criteria, Vietcombank Remittance Company (VCBR) has remarkably improved its operational procedures, diversified its products, and enhanced its customer experience.

    Dao Minh Tuan, deputy CEO of Vietcombank, chairman of the VCBR Board of Directors, said the two awards obtained from GBM magazine are a significant affirmation and recognition of VCBR’s efforts and achievements in providing the best market service.

    “To record such great achievements, thanks to the steadfast effort of the entire VCBR team, in providing the best service experience, building solid trust with customers and partners. However, VCBR will encourage further innovation in its business operation to work toward the goal of becoming the number one remittance company in Vietnam,” he added.

    VCBR was established in 2017 with the task of facilitating remittances from abroad to Vietnam, supporting the ecosystem of Vietcombank’s products and services.

    Vietcombank has set its vision and strategic objectives toward 2025: Maintaining its position as the No. 1 retail bank in Vietnam and becoming one of the 100 largest banks in Asia; one of the 300 largest banking and financial groups in the world and finally one of the 1,000 largest listed companies in the world.

    The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dire impact on the global economy in the last two years. A huge number of companies have been forced into bankruptcy, and the unemployment rate has reached a record. The pandemic also had a serious impact on money transfer and remittance activities.

    In Vietnam, remittance companies constantly had to narrow the scope and scale of their operations. Under the circumstances, VCBR has proactively adapted to the chaos along with encouraging innovation, ensuring safe business performance, profitability and high efficiency.

    According to Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of State Bank of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Branch, the flow of remittance to Ho Chi Minh city By the end of November is about $6.2 billion, which has already surpassed the volume of 2020 at $6.1 billion. VCBR has achieved striking growth in terms of volumes with a forecast of an over 60 percent increase compared to 2020, ranking among the top 2 remittance companies in Vietnam.

  • UBS Asset Management Names Sustainability Head

    UBS Asset Management Names Sustainability Head

    Swiss bank UBS is hiring a sustainable expert for its asset management arm. The experienced banker used to manage the investments of an Australian state.

    UBS asset management is appointing Lucy Thomas as head of sustainable investing, the bank said in an emailed statement.

    Thomas will lead sustainability and impact strategy and report to Barry Gill, head of investments for UBS asset management.

    In her previous role, Thomas was head of investment stewardship at TCorp, the financial markets’ partner of the New South Wales government in Australia. Thomas will move from Sydney to Zurich for the position.

    Thomas brings extensive experience working with clients and leading the integration of sustainability factors into the investment process globally, Gill said in the statement.

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  • Citi Posts Strong Institutional Business Growth in Taiwan

    Citi Posts Strong Institutional Business Growth in Taiwan

    Citi’s institutional business in Taiwan saw a significant acceleration in 2021 with numerous transactions across industries including technology, consumer, renewables, and financial services.

    Citi’s Taiwanese institutional clients have been ramping up their efforts to take advantage of the growth environment in areas such as supply chain diversification.

    Taiwan is home to many world-class companies and we are committed to supporting their ambitions, according to a statement citing Christie Chang, head of banking, capital markets, and advisory for Citi Taiwan and chair of APAC corporate banking.

    Within mergers and acquisitions, the American lender advised on five Taiwan-related deals in recent years, including three in 2021.

    The deals this year spanned across businesses related to semiconductor assembly and testing, renewable energy and retail food.

    Citi has also supported billions of dollars in fundraising for Taiwan corporates across local and global capital markets.

    Within equity capital markets, the bank supported fundraising that totaled nearly $1.5 billion in 2021 across businesses linked to financial services, semiconductors, and other electronics manufacturing. And within debt capital markets, it helped raise $8 billion, also for manufacturing-related businesses.

    According to Citi, some of its largest growth inflows this year originated from trade corridors involving Taiwan with a nearly 50 percent increase in Taiwan-to-India flows and around a 20 percent increase in Taiwan-to-ASEAN flows.

    The bank has also observed strong inbound flows into Taiwan, most notably from companies in Australia, India and Japan.

    There is a massive transformation happening across all industries and with a global network this has helped sharpen Citi’s dialogue with clients in Taiwan as they increasingly want a regional and global perspective, Chang added.

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  • Deutsche Adds Over a Dozen Private Bankers in India

    Deutsche Adds Over a Dozen Private Bankers in India

    Deutsche Bank Wealth Management has made a significant expansion in India with the hire of more than a dozen for the front office and product units.

    Deutsche Bank Wealth Management in India has made over 15 hires across relationship management and investment advisory join this year and early 2022, according to a statement.

    The business opportunity in India has become very compelling with the material wealth creation driven by entrepreneurial activity, said Amrit Singh, head of wealth management, global South Asia.

    We are now shifting gears and expanding our long-standing and established team as we seek to support our clients and reach new ones with our full suite of products and solutions.

    For the front office, the German private bank hired Rajasekar Ayyalu to join as a director in Chennai with a focus on expanding and deepening its presence in that region.

    Ayyalu was most recently with Julius Baer where he was an executive director for investments. Previously, he also worked at Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland.

    The bank has also hired four vice presidents – Jai Bhatia, Sanyam Sharma, Anjali Vashisth and Manish Lalwani – to join as relationship managers in the Delhi and Mumbai offices.

    Deutsche Bank has also been bolstering its product capabilities in India, including the hire of Mayank Khemka as chief investment officer in December 2019 which subsequently led to the launch of a domestic discretionary portfolio management business.

    Adding to its existing shelf of equity multi-cap and multi-asset customized strategies, the bank introduced a fixed income strategy following the hire of Bhupendra Meel as a fixed income fund manager.

    We are delighted to bring on board some of the most promising talents in the private banking industry, said Atinkumar Saha, head of wealth management, Deutsche Bank, India.

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  • Union Bank Chosen as Citi’s Preferred Philippines Bidder

    Union Bank Chosen as Citi’s Preferred Philippines Bidder

    Citigroup has reportedly selected the Union Bank of Philippines as its preferred bidder for its consumer banking assets in the country.

    Citi has chosen Union Bank as its preferred bidder for a potential sale valued at an estimated $1 billion, according to a report citing unnamed sources.

    Talks are still ongoing and no conclusive decisions have been made with other bidders still interested.

    Other reportedly interested bidders for the Philippines consumer banking assets include BDO Unibank, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. and Bank of the Philippines Island.

    The sale is part of Citi’s broader plan to exit from 13 markets where it lacks scale and focus its wealth efforts around hubs in Hong Kong, London, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

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  • Morgan Stanley Follows Suit with Hong Kong Covid Reimbursement

    Morgan Stanley Follows Suit with Hong Kong Covid Reimbursement

    Morgan Stanley is the latest Wall Street lender to provide reimbursements for Hong Kong staff traveling to visit immediate family, outdoing J.P. Morgan’s recently announced Covid benefits by $100.

    Morgan Stanley will provide a one-time reimbursement to Hong Kong staff of up to HK$40,000 ($5,100) for quarantine stays when returning to the city, according to a report citing an internal memo.

    The reimbursement will apply to those returning from travels to see immediate family between December 1 this year and November 30 next year.

    The reimbursement plans come days after a similar move by Wall Street rival J.P. Morgan announced after a 32-hour visit to Hong Kong by chief executive Jamie Dimon which included a rare exemption from the city’s strict quarantine rules.

    We recognize that the costly quarantine measures in place in Hong Kong associated with Covid-19 have impacted many of you with respect to visiting family and loved ones overseas, according to a memo from J.P. Morgan which offered a one-time reimbursement of up to $4,000 – $100 less than Morgan Stanley.

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  • DLA Piper Hires New Partner in Hong Kong

    DLA Piper Hires New Partner in Hong Kong

    Over the past couple of years, DLA Piper has welcomed several new partners to its Asia Corporate practice. Now the firm announces another hire.

    Global law firm DLA Piper continues to strengthen Asia capital markets offering with new partner hire in Hong Kong, the firm announced Monday. George Wu was appointed as a capital markets partner in its corporate practice. He joins the firm from Herbert Smith Freehills in Hong Kong.

    He advises on corporate and securities transactions including IPOs, debt offerings, private equity, M&A, and compliance matters. He represents issuers of securities as well as investors, underwriters and placement agents for both public and private offerings.

    Wu has particular experience advising on initial public offerings, follow-on offerings in Hong Kong and U.S. capital markets, as well as debt offering transactions including investment-grade and high-yield bonds, convertible and exchangeable bonds, and medium-term note programs. He also brings in-depth industry knowledge to the table, having advised clients on dozens of corporate transactions in various sectors, including healthcare and life sciences, technology, and consumer goods, among others.

    A native Mandarin speaker, Wu is also fluent in Cantonese and English having lived and worked in Shanghai, New York, and Hong Kong.

    George Wu’s arrival closely follows that of capital markets partner Arthur Tso who joined the Hong Kong office in March 2021. Over the past couple of years, DLA Piper has welcomed several new partners to its Asia Corporate practice including Philip Lee and David Kuo in Singapore, and Samata Masagee in Bangkok.

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  • DBS Hit by Worst Outage in a Decade

    DBS Hit by Worst Outage in a Decade

    DBS faced two consecutive days of disruptions to its online banking services, marking the worst outage for the Singapore lender since its ATM glitch in 2010.

    DBS issued a social media post to address the recurring disruptions to its online banking services, including its payments app.

    Services were restored early this morning,» the bank said yesterday in a Facebook post. Unfortunately, yesterday’s digital banking issue has recurred and this has affected our services.

    The post attracted more than 2,500 comments, many of which expressed frustration about blocked access to banking accounts.

    Outages at DBS and its low-cost consumer banking unit POSB first occurred on Tuesday after reports first surfaced in the morning, according to Downdetector – a website that uses crowd-sourcing to track online outages. And just hours after resolving the issue yesterday morning, the outages continued at the bank.

    The inability to access an essential service over such an extended period of time is unacceptable and we deeply regret the inconvenience caused, DBS said in a separate social media post.

    This marks the worst outage experienced by the Singapore lender since 2010 when customers were unable to withdraw cash from ATMs for hours due to a major glitch which subsequently led to supervisory action by the city-state’s financial regulator.

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  • DBS May Face Regulatory Action Over Outage

    DBS May Face Regulatory Action Over Outage

    The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it will consider appropriate supervisory actions on DBS, which suffered recurring disruptions to its online banking services, including its payments app.

    This is a serious disruption and MAS expects DBS to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the root causes and implement the necessary remedial measures, Marcus Lim, MAS’ assistant managing director (banking and insurance), said in a statement.

    The regulator said the bank informed it about a problem with its access control servers that resulted in customers experiencing difficulties logging on to its digital banking services.

    Lim said MAS expects all financial institutions to have systems and processes to ensure the consistent availability of financial services to their customers.

    This week, DBS faced two consecutive days of disruptions to its online banking services, marking the worst outage for the Singapore lender since its ATM glitch in 2010.

    DBS Singapore country head Shee Tse Koon apologized for the outage in a video posted on the bank’s website and various social media pages on Wednesday afternoon.

    The bank also extended services at its branches for two hours and encouraged customers to use its phone banking services. In the meantime, I want to assure you that your deposits and monies are safe, Shee said.

  • Citi Hires for New Digital Assets Unit

    Citi Hires for New Digital Assets Unit

    Talent hired to work on Citi’s crypto division will be based in Singapore, in addition to London, New York, and Tel Aviv.

    Citi has appointed Puneet Singhvi to the bank’s ICG Business Development team on 1 December as the ICG head of digital assets, reporting to Emily Turner, head of business development, with a matrix reporting line to Stuart Riley, global head of ICG, according to an internal memo seen.

    Singhvi joins the team from global markets, where he was most recently the head of the blockchain and digital assets. He has also led teams across sales, business development, and product in global markets and securities services and treasury and trade solutions (TTS).

    Shobhit Maini and Vasant Viswanathan will be co-heads of Blockchain and Digital Assets for Global Markets, reporting to Biswarup Chatterjee with a matrix report to Singhvi. The TTS Head of Digital Assets and the Securities Services Digital Asset lead will also matrix report to Singhvi, the memo said.

    The bank will also add approximately 100 roles across its Institutional Clients Group (ICG) and associated functions to bolster its expertise in blockchain, including digital assets and digital currencies.

    Citi said the locations in which it is hiring for the digital assets team is strategic for its ICG business and technology, and represent talent hubs for blockchain and digital asset expertise.

    We are focused on assessing the needs of our clients in the digital asset space; prior to offering any products and services, we are studying these markets, as well as the evolving regulatory landscape and associated risks in order to meet our own regulatory frameworks and supervisory expectations.

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  • Personal deposits down across banking sector

    Personal deposits down across banking sector

    Personal bank deposits were nearly VND5,292 trillion (some $230 billion) by late September, down roughly VND1.5 trillion against late August, according to the central bank.

    Since July, monthly bank deposits fell against previous months, the State Bank of Vietnam stated, noting deposits in August decreased by some VND1 trillion against July.

    From early January to late September, personal deposits hit VND150 trillion, a year-on-year decline of some 50 percent.

    Lower savings interest rates and more attractive stock market and cryptocurrency channels were blamed for falling deposits.

    Total trading value on Vietnam’s HSX, HNX and UPCoM stock markets reached a record high of VND56.337 trillion on Nov. 19, up from the previous record of VND52.145 trillion on Nov. 3.

    According to a survey conducted among over 70,000 people by VnExpress on July 22, real estate was the most popular investment channel (32 percent), ranking above gold and savings (7-10 percent).

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  • StanChart Hires Amazon Technologist

    StanChart Hires Amazon Technologist

    He relocates to Singapore from Sydney, where he spent four years as a senior manager, solution architecture, at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

    Standard Chartered has appointed technologist Brendan Royal as its global chief architect, according to a report on «eFinancialCareers.»

    Royal has over 20 years of experience in financial services across retail, wealth and corporate banking, specializing in large transformation programs with a deep focus on tech and building enduring teams, his LinkedIn profile says. Before joining Amazon in 2019, he was head of banking architecture at Nordea, divisional director for BFS Architecture at Macquarie, and worked for CBA between 1999 and 2013, latterly as head of retail and business banking architecture.

    The move follows the bank’s five-year strategic global agreement with AWS to drive its digital transformation and deliver new personalized banking services in the bank’s 60 markets worldwide, signed in November 2020.

    As banks partner up with cloud platforms like AWS, they are increasingly also hiring from these same providers, the report said, noting that StanChart hired Google’s Singapore-based cloud engineering lead, Carl Bachman Kharazmi, as managing director and global head of cloud engineering and platforms earlier this year.

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  • China’s Anti-Monopoly Crackdown Hits Banking Sector

    China’s Anti-Monopoly Crackdown Hits Banking Sector

    Chinese regulators extend their antitrust crackdown to the banking sector with a fine against shareholders of a virtual lender.

    The shareholders of Chinese virtual lender AliBank – China Citic Bank (70 percent) and a Baidu unit called Fujian Baidu Bo Rui Netcom (30 percent) – have been fined 500,000 yuan ($78,280) over a violation of the country’s anti-monopoly law, according to a statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).

    SAMR issued a fine over the failure to report the AiBank joint venture ahead of its formation in 2015.

    The penalty was part of a broader batch of more than 40 cases with fines issued to other tech firms outside of the banking sector such as JD.com, Tencent, Baidu, ByteDance, and Alibaba.

    AiBank is an artificial intelligence-focused lender that leverages related capabilities from search engine giant Baidu.

    It is one of five licensed digital banks in China and the only one with a state-backed shareholder in Citic.

    According to research by McKinsey released in January, Chinese digital banks own roughly 5 percent of the country’s 5 trillion yuan unsecured consumer loan market and over 7 percent of the SME loan market.

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  • UBS Names Successor to Chairman Axel Weber

    UBS Names Successor to Chairman Axel Weber

    The Swiss bank’s board is nominating a veteran of Morgan Stanley as chairman. UBS will also elevate a Swiss stalwart as his deputy.

    Zurich-based UBS is nominating Colm Kelleher as its next chairman, it said in a statement on Saturday. The 64-year-old Irishman, who spent most of his career at Morgan Stanley in the U.S., is to replace Axel Weber, who will step down in April when he hits term limits.

    UBS will also propose Lukas Gaehwiler as vice-chairman, it said. The 56-year-old is a former corporate banker who ran the bank in Switzerland until 2017, and now chairs the same domestic unit.

    Kelleher in 2019 left Morgan Stanley, where he had overseen both institutional securities business as well as wealth management. He is battle-tested, having been finance chief and co-head of strategy at the U.S. bank during the 2008/09 financial crisis.

    Gaehwiler is to ensure a Swiss balance in its board, a person familiar with the matter said. The search to replace Weber involved both the outgoing chairman himself as well as CEO Ralph Hamers, UBS said in March.

    Kelleher’s nomination comes one year after that of António Horta-Osório at UBS’ crosstown rival Credit Suisse – and on the same day that Germany’s Deutsche Bank nominated Alex Wynaendts, a former insurance CEO who now sits on Citi’s board, as its new chairman.

    UBS considered candidates such as Roche’s overseer Christoph Franz, Swiss ex-central banker Philipp Hildebrand, and ex-Unicredit boss Jean-Pierre Mustier.

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  • Deutsche Bank Backs Nomination of Ex-Aegon Chief as Chairman

    Deutsche Bank Backs Nomination of Ex-Aegon Chief as Chairman

    Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board committee supported the nomination of a new chairman, formerly from Dutch insurance firm Aegon.

    The supervisory board committee fully backed the nomination of Alexander Wynaendts as the German lender’s new chairman and he now awaits the appointment to be confirmed by shareholder votes in May, according to a report citing an internal memo.

    If successful, Wynaendts will succeed current chairman Paul Achleitner, another former insurance executive from Allianz.

    Wynaendts has experience in the fields that always made Deutsche Bank stand out: strong expertise in retail, corporate, and capital markets business as well as in asset management – and a global network, said Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing in the memo.

    Wynaendts has over 30 years of experience in the financial sector, serving as CEO and chairman of Aegon from 2008 to 2020 after first joining the Hague-headquartered insurer in 1997.

    At Aegon, Wynaendts led the insurer through a 3 billion euro ($3.39 billion) state bailout and restructuring in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis.

    He began his financial services career with ABN AMRO in 1984, working in the Dutch lenders’ private banking and investment banking operations in Amsterdam and London.

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