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Asia Financial Services

Covering all aspects of financial services in Asia from banking in China to algo trading in Japan.

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

More details on NAB core banking replacement

After news earlier this month that National Australia Bank had recruited Oracle to manage the roll out of the first phase of a A$1 billion overhaul of its core banking operations, it's not surprising that I-flex, majority owned by Oracle, will be providing the new core banking system. However, The Economic Times in India reported some more detail...

/retail /wholesale

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Plenty of cards in China - but very few being used

According to ChinaDaily, as of the end of last year, lenders in China had issued 1.5 billion bank cards, including debit cards, credit cards and quasi-credit cards. Of the huge sum, active cards, which were used at least once every month, were only about 80 million, less than 10 percent of the total. These figures come from China UnionPay, the nat...

/payments /retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Culture of responsibility

Japanese business culture is big on individuals stepping up to take responsibility for mistakes that have resulted in their organisation losing face. TSE executives taking a salary cut over the latest glitch is obviously a lot less severe than the falling-on-one's-sword routine favoured by samurai of old, but what is more interesting is the action ...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Bridging the Strait

The government of the new Taiwanese President Ma Yingjeou has, over the past few weeks, taken a number of key steps towards financial services liberalization between Taiwan and the mainland that are pointing towards a more integrated financial sector. The two players have always been closely economically intertwined, but there have been many barri...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Erasing earthquake debt

Non-performing loans (NPLs) have been the monkey on the back of Chinese banks for years. Previous to 2001, NPL rates weren’t as big of a concern for the banks as they were all fully state-owned and competition was weak. China entering the WTO changed that. As the industry started to open up, competition increased and banks considered public listin...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

China's Earthquake

Taking a step away from financial services for a minute, I thought it fitting to give a view from China of what’s happening regarding China’s recent earthquake. In previous disasters like the SEA tsunami a few years ago or the recent typhoon in Myanmar, I've often found myself detached from the reality of the situation by geographical distance. Al...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

China: Supporting the markets

2008 is turning out to be a another big year for the Shanghai stock market, not because of the bubble-like conditions or growth like what we saw in 2007, but for the changes in market regulations. Since the peak of 6,124 in October 2007, the market has dropped over 50%; briefly dipping under 3,000 in intraday trading. With the Olympics on the horiz...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

The Genie and the Giant

The Citic / Bear Stearns fall-out is one example of many where proposed or actual tie-ups in China have changed as of late. Another prominent one is Yahoo and their arrangement with Alibaba, the largest B2B website in China. In August 2005, Yahoo invested US$1B for a 39 percent stake in Alibaba, who then agreed to run the Chinese operations of Yah...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Bear rumblings in Asia

The collapse of Bear Sterns has not only changed the financial industry in the US, but it's also had a number of knock-on effects in Asia. Most prominently is China’s Citic Securities decision to call off plans for the planned US$1B cross-investment in Bear Stearns. The deal was originally announced in October of last year as part of a strategic a...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Contactless in China

Without too much fanfare, Nokia and China Unionpay recently launched a near field communication (NFC) contactless payments trial in Shanghai allowing users to download a loyalty application over the air to their phones. It’s actually the 2nd trial of NFC in China. The first project was a ticketing and e-cash application loaded onto 100 phones in t...

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