Asia Finance News Latest headline news and analysis on Asia finance, business, forex and trade

Akihito Nohara from Rakuten Bank, Japan was awarded The Best Retail Banker at The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards, 2013     Read More »

Singapore is the world’s fastest growing wealth centre and is predicted to overtake Switzerland to become the largest offshore private banking market by 2020, according to recent research. Global financial analysis group Timetric said assets under management within the city-state had risen to US$550bn by the end of 2011 from just US$50bn in 2000 and that it is set to ... Read More »

(Reuters) – Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Carlyle (CG.O) has tapped Rajiv Louis, a banker with a decade of dealmaking experience in Indonesia, to ... Read More »

BOAO — Billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday China had a “couple of years” to control risks from nontraditional financing whose expansion had parallels with the cause of the global financial crisis. “The rapid growth of shadow banking has some disturbing similarities with the subprime mortgage market in the US that caused the financial crisis of 2007-08,” Mr Soros ... Read More »

Financial regulators across Asia are tightening oversight of how key interest rates are set and cracking down on signs of corruption, as a widening investigation into the banking industry world-wide unearths more evidence of systematic rate rigging. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has stripped a banking-industry group of control and is phasing out some versions of the ... Read More »

Asian and European banks registered as US swap dealers this week, joining Wall Street rivals in complying with new rules that aim to shed light on the opaque US$650 trillion derivatives market. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Nomura were among the swap dealers listed in the registry of the National Futures Association (NFA), a US regulator. But ... Read More »

SINGAPORE—Moody’s Investors Service cut Vietnam’s credit rating further into junk territory, citing risks that the government will have to pump money into the country’s banks and the sector’s limited ability to support the economy. Moody’s on Friday downgraded Vietnam by one notch to B2 with a stable outlook and said risks to the rating were balanced going forward. It also ... Read More »

NEW YORK, Mar 14, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Deutsche Bank today announced Islamic Finance News has recently recognized the Bank as Best Islamic Trustee / Custodian in its 2011 Best Banks Poll. This is the second consecutive year Deutsche Bank has achieved this recognition. The Islamic Finance News 2011 Best Banks Poll takes an unbiased and all-encompassing approach in selecting ... Read More »

Asia-Pacific central banks will probably hold off on adding monetary stimulus this week as higher oil prices combine with diminishing concern of a euro- region meltdown to make the case for preserving firepower. South Korea and New Zealand will hold interest rates tomorrow, according to all economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Indonesia will keep its key rate at 5.75 percent ... Read More »

BEIJING, Feb. 26 (Xinhuanet) — China’s central bank may cut the interest rate in the second and third quarters this year, as the economies in the EU and US slow down further while domestic inflation pressure gradually eases, economists said on Saturday. According to research co-sponsored by Xiamen University and the National University of Singapore, China’s monetary policy is very ... Read More »