Commentary

With the outlook of slow growth in the coming years, banks across Asia need to aim for significant structural changes to their cost base. This can be a challenge, however there are lessons from the experiences of other industries such as the European postal industry for example.

It was a financial services seminar with the agenda focused on recognising the triggers for the current financial environment. On the aside were two senior bankers who were not too comfortable that the previous session speaker tried to impress that banks were not having an adequate governance process inspite of the existence of an appropriate risk and compliance management system.

The Financial Times and other media outlets reported yesterday that the Chinese authorities plan to “instruct” banks to roll over their credits to local governments. If confirmed, such a move would both ease the debt burden on local governments and prevent a possible wave of defaults on bank balance sheets as these loans come due over the next 1-3 years (banks have been forbidden from rolling over or extending new loans to local governments). The policy would not be a complete surprise, as the CBRC hinted last October that a move of this kind was under consideration. According to such reports, banks may extend the maturity of their loans by up to four years. We estimate that outstanding local government debt amounts to RMB 14.7 trillion, of which one-fifth may come due this year (based on figures reported by the National Accounting Office), and the remainder through 2014.

Across Asia, investment fund transaction processing methods and distribution models differ markedly. The reason is that domestic investment fund markets have matured according to individual market needs.

The unfolding scandal in Tokyo involving pension investment management firm AIJ Investment Advisors Co. is depressingly predictable.

BKPM (Indonesia Investment Coordination Board) expects foreign investments to grow to USD 19,2 billion in 2012 from USD 18,7 billion.

The banking community of the Asia Pacific region continues to impress with its commitment to the branch.

Every time a new way of paying for something has arrived – credit and debit cards, internet payments, contactless cards, mobile phone payments – the imminent death of cash has been announced. It sounds a reasonable prediction to make given the convenience of these new methods.

With the dark clouds of a recession looming on the horizon, conservation measures will be the default procedure by Asian companies for the next 12 months.

As Asia emerges as the world’s largest wealth region, the one question foremost on the minds of all private bankers should be this: what does a typical Asian client look like?

Not too many people enjoy seeing volatile investment markets. It seems to set a mood of doom and gloom. As red numbers continue to be displayed on investment market information screens or headlined in the media, some people just get downright depressed. But it is not necessarily all doom and gloom.

Beyond the noise generated by the European sovereign debt crisis and the seemingly unending debate about reducing the U.S. federal fiscal deficit, we believe macroeconomic fundamentals are evolving just as they might be expected to in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

It is easy to see how individual investors can be confused and anxious recently because of the Euro-zone crisis – and many will be wondering what to do next. In a buoyant market confidence runs high and most people feel they can take higher risks and expect higher than average returns. But when, like now, the markets are volatile, investors tend to take the other extreme position and stay in cash or bonds. But the greatest advice at times like these is to adhere to your investment strategy (as long as it is a sound one) even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. But, in times of market turbulence this advice is rarely adhered to and we see investors making the same common mistakes time and time again. Here are the top three: 1. We tend to ‘follow the herd’ and seek safety in numbers. This type of investor behavior means we are easily affected by all media noise which blinds us against making rational investment decisions. 2. The pain we feel when we take a financial loss is twice as large as the joy we feel from a financial win. We are programmed so that a short term loss means more emotionally to us than the ability to appreciate the medium or long-term wins, which directly impacts our investing behavior. 3. We confuse price for value. If the markets are at a discount, shouldn’t that be a good time to be buying quality stocks? Hence, if you recognize that we succumb to the above pitfalls - then you know we need to be smarter in order to catch the market edge – we need to look beyond the doom and gloom of market volatility. When the going is good, most people are not averse to engaging in risk concentrated activities such as emerging markets or commodities. But it makes sense to have your portfolio founded on a well diversified investment strategy – no matter what is going on in the markets. You can reduce the impact of market movements by diversifying your portfolio and by doing this you reduce your risk. There are a number of ways to diversify within your portfolio, for example you can diversify across the four different asset classes: shares, cash, property and bonds. You can diversify within the asset classes themselves, for example purchasing shares in companies that operate in different industries such as mining and banking retail etc. You can also diversify across countries which will reduce your exposure to a single country and currency. Managed funds are a good way to help provide you with an easy route to diversification. To survive in volatile times (and even profit from them), it is important that your portfolio has a strong framework and you have the discipline to save and invest in both good and bad times. We know it is tough to keep a balanced view of things around money in turbulent times and a financial guide with a compatible philosophy can help to keep you grounded, even when the markets are not.  

What is a Convertible Bond (CB)? CBs are hybrid instruments combining a corporate bond and a buy option on the underlying share. They thus offer the best of both worlds: their equity component allows investors to participate in market upswings, while their bond component offers a protective buffer. Their performance is dictated by credit spreads and the performance of the underlying share. These traits have made this asset class the object of increasing interest, as reflected by the major inflows into dedicated directional funds over the past three years. A special dynamism is evident in the Asian CBs market – the only market of any discernible size among the emerging regions, with USD 20 billion of new issues this year as of November 30th 2011 (48% of 2011 total number of issues / 28% of the total volume). Attraction of Asian CB market? Ø Play Growth While Europe’s future remains uncertain and growth in the US is only gradually recovering, the emerging nations, although not immune to the global slowdown, are still growing healthily. Traditionally regarded as export-oriented economies, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region are establishing themselves as major drivers of global growth by virtue of their size and the pace of progression in their consumption and GDP. Ø Look for asymmetry Against this backdrop, CBs are a smart way for investors to expose themselves to Asian growth, enabling them to benefit considerably from equity market rallies with a “parachute” effect in the event of a decline. They offer an attractive rate of return (superior to their European or US counterparts for the same credit rating) and inexpensive options: the average options of Asian CBs today look cheap. It is worth mentioning that equity sensitivity is quite low in the universe at present. Lower deltas mean the credit component is stronger. Furthermore, it reacts with more volatility for a higher beta region. Ø Dynamism and Diversification With capitalization totalling USD 78 billion (according to UBS), the Asian CB market consists of about 600 securities and constitutes a dynamic and diversified market in which all sectors and major economies of the region are represented. However, roughly half of the pool is issued by Chinese and Indian companies. Even if nowadays about 60% of the pool is listed in USD, we are seeing an increasing number of bonds issued in local currencies (HKD, SGD, AUD, KRW, CNY). Another characteristic of this market is that a large proportion of the bonds issued are not rated, even if the issuing companies are, themselves, subject to a rating (S&P, Moody’s, Fitch). The absence of a rating is not, however, an indication of poor quality. Indeed, a number of issuers are blue chip regional companies. Ø Cheapness CBs are currently attractively valued in technical terms. This is especially true for Asian CBs. The attached chart compares the price of CBs with their valuation based on a sum-of-the-parts analysis (sum of the valuation of the bond component and the option). In other words: Participate in the region’s potential without assuming all the risks CBs thus currently offer an attractive risk/return profile and serve as a useful tool for boosting the performance of diversified portfolios. By virtue of their asymmetric profile, they allow investors to take advantage of the huge potential offered by the region without being exposed to all of the risks. Source: BoA Merrill Lynch

The next generation of cross-border electronic trading is gaining strong traction over the past few years in the global financial markets. Ironically, in some Asian markets, it can take seconds to execute an equities order. For algorithmic traders who use sophisticated algorithms to trade thousands of shares in mere milliseconds, any slowdown in the transactions can mean loss instead of profit. The spilt second is where traders’ enormous opportunities lie.In other words, slow trading speedscan be seen asthe result of hidden transaction costs. Yet, if financial institutions can deliver high speed capabilities while keeping costs down, they can gain a valuable competitive edge while elevating their game. High Frequency Trading (HFT) involves the use of computerized algorithms to generate short-term trading signals with a very short risk-holding period.In 2010, HFT accounts for 70% of the turnover of equity markets and over 50% of U.S. equity trade volume. In Asia, HFT drives 40% of market trading activity in Tokyo and around 10% to 30% in Asia Pacific. So what has been holding Asia’s financial markets back over the past few years? State regulations, opposition from entrenched interests and the lack of critical IT infrastructure are some of the key reasons. The current IT infrastructure of many financial exchanges and financial service institutions in Asia is to be enhanced to meet the anticipated demands for micro-second transactions.Many Asian financial institutions are wising up to this fact – local and regional investors, hedge fund managers and investment banks are exploring all possible means to step up for the IT arms race. Now, IT infrastructure has been widely regarded as a necessity to capture this spilt second advantage and compete with its peers. For most algorithmic traders, HFT means the need for high performance for cross-border electronic transactions. How can financial institutions improve their connections to key Asian financial markets? This calls for a new generation of sophisticated Financial Data Centres that provides proximity advantages and ultra-low latency solution. Proximity advantages, as the name suggested, means proximity to the financial exchange. In Hong Kong, for instance, the first Financial Data Centre, to be completed in 2013, is built next to the Hong Kong Exchange’s next generation data centre in Tseung Kwan O.This physical proximity of the trading systems will significantly matter on the latency networks.

A momentous step forward has recently been taken by the Chinese government in its quest to apply a Value Added Tax (VAT) across both its goods and services sectors.