Commentary

10 things governments should do to ensure banking and financial stability

A number of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America have ‘come in from the cold’ in recent years as a result of a pent-up desire for political and societal renewal. A major issue for the new rulers running countries that are now much more open to the outside world is to consider how best to adapt banks and financial firms to systemic political change.

Commentary

10 things governments should do to ensure banking and financial stability

Commentary

Here's how banks can select the right systems integrator in Asia

Implementing a core banking system leads to a large and complex project, which involve high risk and multiple stakeholders - a classic case for hiring a Systems Integrator to handle the complexity. (Flyvberg and Al, 2003; Altshuler and Luberoff, 2003; Miller and Lessard, 2000; Morris and Hough, 1987).

Commentary

Regulatory compliance optimisation for banks

How can banks optimise regulatory compliance and everchanging rules? Instead of an ad-hoc and piecemeal approach, regulatory compliance challenges can be addressed by an "optimised" parallel approach, which takes advantage of common business and processing traits across multiple regulations.

Commentary

5 factors affecting investments attracted by capital markets

Capital Markets are primarily driven by the exchange of Capital (in the form of cash or security) by those in need of Capital and by those offering it. The investment attracted by any Capital Market is influenced by many factors.

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3 ways to avoid unplanned outages in Asian banks

High Availability is a Business Decision Before automated teller machines, customers looking to access banking services had no choice but to wait in line at a bank, during its opening hours. Today, online and mobile banking platforms have provided customers with instant access to the majority of banking services, creating a new reality for banks.

Commentary

Threats and challenges for online banking security

Online Banking offers users the convenience of managing one's finances anytime, anywhere. However, any online transaction can be vulnerable to security threats.

Commentary

Rising leverage poses rating risks for Asia-Pacific banks

High or rapidly increasing leverage, together with mounting exposure to China, will constrain upward rating momentum for banks in Asia-Pacific (APAC). It could even lead to downgrades should China's economy slow more sharply than expected and weaknesses in its banking system become more widespread.

Commentary

What Asian banks can learn from Metro Bank's Chairman

The New Bank on the Block: Lafferty spoke with Anthony Thomson, Metro Bank

Commentary

Hong Kong and Singapore retain their talent as financial services struggles

The employment markets in Hong Kong and Singapore financial services are less buoyant than they were 18 months ago; banks have been making redundancies, and recruitment remains comparatively low. Despite this, financial professionals show few signs of wanting to leave these cities. But while they still like living there, they are now considering local opportunities in other industries.

Commentary

Real-time analytics unleashed

In its 2012 Predictions: Competing for 2020 report, IDC states that 40 percent of banks will ramp up to launch big data and analytics. This is expected as the financial services industry has always been ahead of the technology curve; and nothing defines the landscape more than big data and analytics today.

Commentary

The end of outsourcing as we know it?

The recent allegations1 and eventual settlement2 against Standard Chartered regarding lapses in their anti-money laundering (AML) controls has made headlines in recent days, with significant impact on their share price and damage to their reputation, apart from the fine of US$340M. What is interesting to note is the finger pointing that is arising out of this incident.

Commentary

Continued churn makes it a low-hire job market, not a no-hire one

The last 12 months have taught us that Asia Pacific is not immune to the redundancies that have swept through global financial services. There are also fewer roles available than a year ago: comparing Q2 2012 with Q2 2011, APAC opportunities on my company’s website have fallen 14%.

Commentary

Worsening investment climate in Indonesia is not reflected in FDI figures yet

In the last few months, overseas analysts and bankers were echoing that Indonesia is losing its sparks as favorite investment destination by investors due to new tighter regulations for mainly the mining and banking industry.

Commentary

What you need to know about Vietnam's bank restructuring

This article illustrates key drivers behind restructuring of banks in Vietnam and highlights the key priorities in the restructuring journey.

Commentary

Risk management in Islamic banking

Banking in Asia has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of size, profitability, sophistication and maturity in the dozen years so far of the 21st century. One of the standouts in this growth has been Islamic banking. Although Islamic banking has a long and illustrious history dating back to the advent of Islam some 1500 years ago, in its current incarnation it is less than 50 years old. And, as happens in a relatively young industry, there are several debates about its form and substance. One of these relates to risk management in Islamic banking.

Commentary

Asia hit by shortage of credit and risk professionals

Despite current global economic conditions, demand is still evident across Asia’s banking and finance sector for particular skills. Here Christine Wright, Operations Director for Hays in Asia, discusses trends and current opportunities across the region from the latest Hays Quarterly Report.

Commentary

Preparing for M&A success in an uncertain environment

With a decline of 16% in deal volumes and 29% in deal values in Q1 2012 over last year, Asia has not been immune to the global reduction in M&A activity over the last few quarters. However, there were still more than 2,700 transactions and $117 billion of total disclosed deal value involving Asian targets or acquirors in Q1 and Asia remains a certain destination for companies looking to gain exposure to fast-growing consumer markets or to assets in strategically important or demographically attractive industries such as energy and healthcare.

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