Commentary

Managing the digital threat

The proliferation of mobile devices and the growth in online tools and networks has been well documented, and the financial services industry has not been immune to this trend with an estimated 400 million people utilizing some form of mobile financial transaction within the next three years. Given this aggressive growth in digital financial services, l institutions that are embracing and shifting to digital channels for reasons of cost and better customer management must make security the centerpiece of any successful digital strategy.

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Managing the digital threat

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Leveraging new opportunities for managing investments

Companies across Asia are seeing significant increases in the amount of cash they are holding.

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Evolving regulatory reform

According to a recent joint KPMG and Oracle survey of executives from financial institutions across the region, the recently proposed reforms Basel III are likely to have a significant impact on banks in Asia-Pacific. About three in four, or 76 percent of respondents said regulatory reforms would have an impact on their business. More than half said these regulatory reforms would likely mean changes to their banks' business models. Almost half or 48 percent expect their banks would need to raise additional capital.

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China: Getting to the retail banking customer

Rebalancing growth

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Making Australia more attractive to global funds managers

As part of the Australian Government’s review of the taxation treatment of collective investment vehicles, the Board of Taxation has issued a comprehensive discussion paper for comment on how to enhance the competitiveness of the tax regime for Australian investment funds.

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Buy-side firms promote local matching on SWIFT

Schroders and Legal & General Investment Management are actively involved with a number of brokers in developing a local confirmation-affirmation allocation capability over SWIFT

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Transaction Banking: The year that was & the year that is going to be

What a year 2010 has been, and for very different reasons for different parts of the global landscape.

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Islamic finance in Malaysia and infrastructural issues

In October 2010, KPMG wrote about the new agenda for Islamic finance institutions globally and three months on, we would like to examine how the industry has fared specifically on a number of areas that were discussed.

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2011: Rabbits and financial instruments accounting

The Year of the Rabbit will be a year with quite a lot of attention on accounting standards, particularly financial instruments accounting.

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The “defenses” to protecting your money

Businesses’ “three lines of defense” may not be strong enough to withstand the next lapse of controls.

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Mind the gap: High-performance IT in financial services

In the financial services industry, the business agenda has firmly moved from survival and cost containment to growth, as firms look to rebuild their earnings models.

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China’s hedge funds show promise, development remains slow due to regulatory hurdles

The Chinese banking sector continues to flourish and the number of hedge fund investors is increasing rapidly in the country on the back of its strong economic growth.

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Deduction of cost incurred to acquire treasury share under an employee share scheme

Back in the 2005, the Singapore Companies Act was amended to allow companies to hold its own shares in treasury.

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Bank losses under scrutiny

Since the global financial crisis, tax authorities globally have been carefully monitoring compliance risks from planning activities associated with the use of tax losses by banks.

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Foreign-Invested Partnerships: New vehicles for private equity investments in the PRC

Several foreign private equity investors set up their investment vehicles in China in the form of "foreign-invested partnerships".

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Social media – an opportunity for transaction banks

The current interest rate environment in many parts of Asia has been forcing the transaction banks to explore way to accelerate growth of their fee based income.

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