Free content
-
Emerging market investors are increasingly focusing on the eurozone crisis. And with good reason, as those events are moving the bonds of the emerging markets. But traditional company-specific risks also remain high. Investors and analysts need to be careful to avoid the distractions of the macro picture elsewhere.
-
Korean regulators have occasionally appeared heavy-handed with domestic banks, but recent turmoil shows that they are right to keep a tight grip on the country’s financial system. With Korean banks so reliant on foreign currency, the regulator should be more aggressive than ever.
-
The rogue trading scandal at UBS is all too familiar. This time, the financial world should take a vow never again to say that risk management has improved. Fraudsters will always find gaps in the system. The only answer is constant, aggressive and flexible surveillance.
-
India wants to raise around $9bn before the end of the financial year from a slew of partial privatisations. So far it has raised just $1bn. The government will need to get moving quickly if it wants to hit its target by the end of March 2012. Its sale of a chunk of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will show whether it has a chance.
-
While the Vickers report offered some comment on senior bail-ins, investors still lack a clear picture of how they will work. Investors are lost in a fog of advisory papers, and bank funding is in crisis. Regulators and governments need to shine a light.
-
Banks are beginning to question whether the ancillary business on offer really justifies losses on cut-price loans to Turkish banks. The debate may not lead to increased pricing for the top tier names but it doesn’t bode well for the borrowing costs of smaller Turkish FIs.
-
The Chinese government has increasingly clamped down on property prices via multiple policies over the past year. It appears to be having some success, but a key danger now is the possibility of tipping the sector into contraction. Elliot Wilson and Richard Morrow report.
-
A combination of the US’s credit downgrade and its exceptionally loose monetary policy is piling pressure on China to faster diversify its huge foreign exchange reserves. ASIAMONEY's Vinicy Chan considers the nation’s alternatives.
-
Fund managers are salivating over the prospects of renminbi-denominated investor flows into China. The full potential will take time to develop, but it could become the primary means of investing into the mainland.
-
The country can boast many impressive industrial developments, but its financial policies leave a lot to be desired.
-
A surprise announcement by the US Fed to hold rates down for two years will place unprecedented pressures onto Asia’s varying FX regimes. China, Hong Kong, and Japan in particular have some difficult decisions to make.
-
Electricity generation in the Philippines has been mired in inefficiencies and poor service, but the administration of president Benigno Aquino III is set on improving this area, in part via public-private partnerships. ASIAMONEY spoke to leading government officials and energy executives on August 4 about the potential and challenges facing these bold plans.