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

Rising leverage poses rating risks for Asia-Pacific banks

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.

Commentary

Retail banks brace for new wave of technology adoption

Global Banks have a grueling task of repositioning their business portfolio in view of financial upheavals in the wake of European crisis and American journey, to achieve financial freedom. In parallel to this unstable scene, revenue models in retail banking are radically changing, as traditional revenue sources of transaction-driven volumes are drying up and are being replaced with new wave of portfolio-driven revenue propositions, where customers are increasingly expecting banks to guide their financial destiny.

Commentary

Barclays: Valuation by analysis

We proposed that Barclays should be split into two separate banks - one focused on retail banking and the other on investment banking - in our 5 July Commentary. That presumed, of course, that the investment bank would be viable and able to fund itself on a stand-alone basis in today's challenging markets.

Commentary

Rumours of the death of the bank branch have been greatly exaggerated

The global banking industry is pretty much at an all time low in terms of reputation. Nowhere is this so true as in the UK, where it might have been thought that public opinion of the banks could hardly have sunk any lower in the aftermath of the financial crisis that has enveloped the global economy since 2008. But in the past few weeks a processing malfunction at RBS seriously affected millions of customer accounts, while the Libor rate-fixing scandal that has claimed the jobs of Barclays Chairman, Marcus Agius and Chief Executive, Bob Diamond.

Commentary

Overhauling the weak segments of the Spanish financial sector

Supervision of Spain’s troubled banking system has now passed largely into the hands of inspectors drawn from the European Commission, the IMF, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Banking Authority (EBA). This follows agreement by the European authorities to provide Spanish banks directly with up to €100bn of new capital via the EFSF bailout fund.

Commentary

The difference between a bank's product vs service

Many banks across the Asia Pacific (APAC) geography are implementing Core Banking products. These banks expect that a modern Core Banking product would give them a competitive edge, the ability to launch new products faster, lower operational costs and improve customer service. Unlike Europe or America, which are large with fairly standard banking offerings, the APAC geography is actually characterized by much more variety in its range of offerings.

Commentary

Technology takes center stage in wealth management

The shift in the wealth management landscape from a client and regulatory perspective have significant technology implications for Asian Wealth Managers. There are three key areas in Wealth Technology that is taking centre-stage; namely, an increasing focus on client-centricity, using compliance as a competitive advantage, and a relentless focus on lowering the cost to serve through platform change.

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