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Tag: Banking

  • 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.

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  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

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  • 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.

  • P2P Lender Funding Societies Launches in Thailand

    P2P Lender Funding Societies Launches in Thailand

    This expansion to the startup’s fourth market comes after more than a year of working with Thai regulators and planning for market entry.

    Singapore-based Funding Societies, Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, has rolled out its platform in Thailand, the company announced in a statement on Tuesday.

    The P2P lender noted Thailand’s large and SME-driven economy and the credit gap that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

    The platform will provide Thai SMEs with full access to short-term customizable financing solutions, which are funded by retail and institutional investors, who can expect returns of 8 to 13 percent, the announcement said.

    The crowdfunding landscape in the country is growing steadily and we see a lot of potential here, Varun Bhandari, country head of Funding Societies Thailand, said about the expansion. The market follows launches in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

    In its six years of operation, Funding Societies has disbursed over $1.4 billion in funding to some 65,000 SMEs. The platform is backed by major investors like Sequoia India and Softbank Ventures Asia.

    Funding Societies recently announced a strategic alliance with Samsung Ventures and Samsung Life Insurance to introduce prospective partnerships and collaborations.

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  • DBS Posts Fourth Quarter Profit Drop

    DBS Posts Fourth Quarter Profit Drop

    DBS posted lower profits in the fourth quarter of 2020 due to higher allowances set aside for potential bad loans.

    Net profit fell 33 percent year-on-year to S$1.01 billion due to a lower net interest margin and high total allowances set aside, according to a statement from DBS.

    The bank’s earnings were in line with the average estimate of S$1.02 billion, according to Refinitiv’s compilation of four analyst forecasts.

    For the full year of 2020, DBS posted a net profit of S$4.72 billion, 26 percent below the record performance of 2019 as total allowances more than quadrupled to S$3.07 billion due to risks from the pandemic. Total income was stable at S$14.6 billion.

    According to the bank’s CEO Piyush Gupta, its pipeline for loans and fee income is healthy and it has also been actively positioning itself for growth.

    We have been proactive through the crisis and enter the year with new growth platforms, Gupta said.

    Lakshmi Vilas Bank in India and the securities joint venture in China will enhance our presence in both key markets. Initiatives such as the Digital Exchange, supply chain digitalization, and efforts to broaden wealth management to the mass market will reinforce our leadership in digital finance. These platforms will strengthen our ability to continue supporting customers and delivering shareholder returns.

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  • SGX Joint Venture to Launch Asian Bond Trading Platform

    SGX Joint Venture to Launch Asian Bond Trading Platform

    The XinTru joint venture with corporate bond trading platform provider Trumid and private equity firm Hillhouse Capital, will launch a new electronic bond trading platform later this year.

    This partnership combines Trumid’s cutting-edge technology and fixed income expertise, SGX’s deep experience in Asian financial market infrastructure and electronic trading, and Hillhouse’s expertise and network in Asia and the financial services sector», SGX said in a statement on Monday.

    The Trumid XT platform will connect liquidity from SGX’s Bond Pro and Trumid’s Market Center in the U.S. to provide a network for Asian fixed-income trading. This will enhance international access to Asian bond markets and facilitate Asian investor participation in U.S. and global emerging market credit, SGX said.

    XinTru’s independent management team includes chief revenue officer Ben Falloon who brings 20 years of Asia fixed income experience and relationships, and chief operating officer Mark Leahy, who has significant experience building and operating capital markets businesses in the region.

    SGX led a $53 million growth equity financing round in the New York-based startup in 2018, and subsequently joined Hillhouse Capital in another round of investment in 2019 when the firm took a minority stake in Trumid.

    Our early investment in Trumid paved the way for this deeper collaboration to advance the overall bond market infrastructure in Asia,” said SGX chief Loh Boon Chye.

    Trumid experienced exceptional growth in 2020, with trade volumes growing 374 percent year-on-year.

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  • KBank to open a Ho Chi Minh City branch

    KBank to open a Ho Chi Minh City branch

    KASIKORNBANK (KBank) is gearing up to become The Bank of AEC+3 after the State Bank of Vietnam granted approval for the opening of a branch in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The Bank aims to serve Thai business customers, including large corporate and SME clients who have invested in Vietnam, as well as local retail customers. It targets lending of 10,000 million Baht in its first year of operation while also investing in start-up firms with the aim of scouting advanced digital technologies for increased business opportunities.

    Mr. Pattarapong Kanhasuwan, KBank Executive Vice President, said that KBank was granted a license to open a branch in Ho Chi Minh City on January 19, 2021, and the Bank is now preparing for its inauguration. The branch is scheduled to open its doors within the third quarter of this year in order to provide services to local customers, including Thai and foreign businesses investing in Vietnam. Attention is now focused on Vietnam as a regional investment hub that has attracted the world’s leading companies – including those from Thailand – thanks to its strong economy. As evidenced, Vietnam is the only ASEAN country that is presently enjoying positive growth. In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is among the world’s top four countries in terms of GDP growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assessed that the Vietnamese economy will recover at a fast rate in 2021, with growth projected at 6.5 percent. This will likely attract international investors, both in Asia and the West, to steadily invest in Vietnam going forward.

    With these factors in mind, KBank has used the knowledge gained from services offered at its two representative offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in order to upgrade the representative office in Ho Chi Minh City to a Bank branch. It will focus on offering services to Thai, Chinese, Japanese and South Korean companies wishing to expand their businesses in Vietnam for international trade and investment, as well as local entrepreneurs, especially those conducting business with Thai corporate customers of KBank.

    KBank has set operational targets for the Bank branch in Ho Chi Minh City once it

    is fully established in 3Q21. These include services primarily for business sectors related to Thai customers of KBank, in particular SMEs, trading, service, infrastructure and industrial businesses. Its services will then be expanded to retail banking, including deposit and personal loan, based on KBank’s digital banking expertise in collaboration with local tech start-ups through investment by KVision to ensure that such services meet the needs of local retail customers. In 2020, the number of internet users in Vietnam had reached up to 70 percent of the total 90 million population, and Vietnam’smarket was valued at USD13 billion. KBank’s investment in Vietnam differs from that in other AEC+3 nations, where the priority is on international business. KBank’s 4Q21 operational targets for the AEC+3 include deposits of 1.2 billion Baht and loans of 10 billion Baht.

    KBank will continue to operate through the Hanoi representative office to provide service and act as an intermediary between the KASIKORNBANK Head Office and Thai customers who are expanding their businesses to northern Vietnam. At the same time, the Hanoi representative office supervises investment projects that have received financial support from KBank, compiles market data to support customers’ business plans, and promotes trading activity and investment between Thailand and Vietnam. Thai exporters who ship goods to Vietnam will also be given more access to the ASEAN market through this international network.

    KBank’s approval from the State Bank of Vietnam to set up operations in Vietnam is a highlight of the Bank’s strategy in becoming The Bank of AEC+3 that will connect all of its services via an extensive banking network in various forms including locally incorporated institutions (LIIs), branches, representative offices and partner banks. At present, KBank has an overseas service network across the AEC+3 countries and several others, in 16 countries and with more than 84 partners worldwide.

  • HSBC Considers Relocation of Top Execs

    HSBC Considers Relocation of Top Execs

    The bank is reportedly considering moving a number of its top executives to Hong Kong or Singapore to strengthen its push in Asia.

    Among the relocations being considered are the two co-heads of its investment bank, Greg Guyett and Georges Elhedery, who are currently located in London, reported on Thursday.

    The move of its top decision-makers to Asia, where the bank makes most of its money, comes almost a year into its restructuring under chief executive Noel Quinn. The bank is preparing to announce the outcome of a strategic review later this month.

    HSBC has been undergoing an overhaul to focus on fee-generating businesses and reducing its operating costs. The bank has also said it intends to increase its rate of investment in Asia, particularly in wealth, the Greater Bay Area, South Asia, trade finance, and sustainable finance while scaling back investments in Europe and the U.S.

    Earlier this week, HSBC has internally appointed Daniel Chan, its current Hong Kong business and commercial banking head, to lead the bank’s new Greater Bay Area office, located in Guangdong.

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  • Standard Chartered Grows CCIB Unit in Singapore

    Standard Chartered Grows CCIB Unit in Singapore

    The bank has made a pair of Singapore-based senior appointments to its Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking (CCIB) segment as it increases its focuses on growing this business.

    Former regional head of client coverage, CCIB, ASEAN and South Asia, Chow Wan Thonh, has been named global head of the bank’s Global Industries Group, Standard Chartered announced in a statement on Thursday.

    Chow joined the bank in 2019, bringing with her over 25 years of experience in the banking industry, having held a number of senior leadership roles in international banks supporting corporate and institutional clients.

    At the same time, Heidi Toribio, who joined the bank in 2013, will replace Chow as Asia co-head of client coverage. She was most recently the bank’s global head of financial institutions. Toribio counts 25 years of banking experience, having previously worked at international banks in a variety of management positions.

    Standard Chartered said the pair have played a key role in accelerating the growth of its CCIB business in Singapore and globally.

    Paul Skelton, Global Head of Client Coverage in CCIB, said in the announcement that corporates’ financing needs are rapidly evolving, as businesses navigate uncertainties while seeking new growth opportunities

  • Sustainable Assets Surge at UBS

    Sustainable Assets Surge at UBS

    UBS maintains momentum in sustainable investments, registering strong asset growth across its asset and wealth management divisions as a result of both market performance and new client demand.

    In 2020, UBS’s global wealth arm saw assets in sustainable portfolios (those defined as 100 percent invested with the consideration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors) exceed $18 billion, $7 billion from inflows alongside even better performance than traditional equivalents, according to a statement.

    The asset management arm also posted strong growth with sustainability-focused assets doubling to $97 billion and ‘Climate Aware’ strategies reaching $15 billion.

    The bank has also successfully met its commitment to raise $5 billion for impact investments related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), beating the five-year timeline (2017-2021) in the second half of last year.

    Sustainability is no longer just a talking point, but also a catalyst for action said group CEO Ralph Hamers. Investors and companies should seek to get ahead of this transformation if they wish to navigate 21st-century risks and opportunities effectively.

    The bank highlighted Asia as a region of focus for sustainability as a theme not only within investment portfolios but across other areas.

    From our conversations with investors and business owners across Asia, we know that many more are looking to integrate ESG-related aspects in their investment portfolios, business plans and philanthropic ventures, said Desmond Kuek, divisional vice chairman and chair of the bank’s APAC sustainable finance network.

    The statement accompanied a white paper for the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda Meetings.

    It listed ten sustainable finance trends the bank identified including investor engagement, impact investing, electric transport, net-zero emissions, innovations in big oil, diversity, plant-based meat, climate stress testing, sustainable data and greater data transparency.

  • Techcombank profits sharply up

    Techcombank profits sharply up

    Vietnam’s largest private lender, Techcombank, reported a 23 percent rise in pre-tax profit last year to VND15.8 trillion ($683.62 million).

    It remained the third most profitable bank in the country behind state-owned Vietcombank and VietinBank.

    Its revenues rose 28 percent to VND27 trillion, nearly 70 percent of its interest income. The rest mostly comprised income from fees and securities investment.

    Provisions were up 2.8 times to over VND2.6 trillion as businesses, hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, struggled to repay loans.

    Credit grew at a whopping 23 percent against the country’s average of 10.14 percent.

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  • HSBC Appoints Singapore Commercial Banking Head

    HSBC Appoints Singapore Commercial Banking Head

    HSBC has promoted a Hong Kong corporate banker previously covering the tech sector to become its head of the commercial banking unit in Singapore.

    Regina Lee has been named as HSBC’s Singapore head of commercial banking, according to a statement, effective March 1 this year.

    Lee will replace Alan Turner who will relocate to the commercial banking unit in Canada after three years in Singapore.

    She will report to CEO of HSBC Singapore Tony Cripps and APAC head of commercial banking Stuart Tait.

    Lee has over 20 years experiencing across corporate and commercial banking. She was most recently a managing director of corporate banking in HSBC’s Hong Kong unit where she led the coverage team for TMT (technology, media, and telecommunications), consumer, retail and commodities.

    In addition, Lee has extensive operational and risk management experience as HSBC’s former chief operating officer for the commercial bank in Hong Kong and she also separately oversaw operational risk and control division for commercial banking in the broader APAC region. Previously, she also led business development for HSBC Hong Kong’s global trade and receivables finance business and the commercial banking business in Macau.

    Singapore continues to be a strategic growth market for the group, offering significant opportunities from its increasing status as an international investment hub and springboard to Southeast Asia, Cripps said.

  • Bank of Singapore Sees Strong IAM Growth

    Bank of Singapore Sees Strong IAM Growth

    OCBC’s private banking arm, Bank of Singapore, saw a major boost in new clients and revenue from independent asset managers in the midst of a pandemic, according to senior market head Teresa Lee said.

    Independent asset managers (IAM) have been one of the major strategic focus for growing our business, said Bank of Singapore’s Greater China and North Asia senior market head Teresa Lee in an interview.

    According to the Singaporean private bank, the number of onboarded IAMs grew almost 50 percent year-on-year, as of November last year, with overall IAM revenue from the same period nearly doubling. This was owed in no small part to the Hong Kong IAMs business which has seen accelerated growth following the launch of a hub dedicated to the segment several years ago.

    We have successfully set up our Hong Kong-based ‘IAM Excellence Center’ in May 2018 to act as a hub to provide dedicated support such as onboarding, trade execution, services, marketing and more, Lee added. We have managed to see good progress in new relationships and client acquisition, especially for Greater China.

    Not unlike its competitors, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted operations and driven digital transformation at Bank of Singapore.

    In a separate conversation with its global chief operating officer Sonjoy Phukan in mid-2020, he noted that over 70 percent of client accounts have already signed up for digital services.

    Similarly for the IAM segment, Lee noted growing adoption – close to 500 participants logged on to a market outlook for an online IAM Forum in April last year.

    Despite the digital gains, Lee echoed private banks’ industrywide belief that the «human touch» was unlikely to go extinct anytime soon.

    Digital capabilities can only accelerate and maintain some processes while others cannot be replaced, she said. I believe that the human touch continues to be key to maintaining relationships.

    Examples of the relevance of high-touch services remain in areas such as wealth or legacy planning, where the bank hired seasoned veteran and ex-APAC head of the practice for HSBC Private Banking Joanna Ho last year.

    In 2020, China was a rare case of growth amongst major economies at 2.3 percent, according to its national data, and mainland equity markets have been buoyed by tech, healthcare and other rallies.

    Similarly, Bank of Singapore has seen strong growth in assets under management across all Greater China client segments which posted a 17 percent increase as of the third quarter last year, outpacing the private bank’s overall growth of 5 percent to $116 billion.

    Lee also expressed confidence that Hong Kong will maintain its hub status and that it will always be an important financial center, especially for Greater China clients, adding that she observed no significant wealth shift to Singapore.

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