Singapore

Citi has appointed Andrea Vanara as its Asia Pacific head of treasury advisory group, a position that has been vacant since last November.

In this round-up, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said RMB internationalisation to continue, South Korea's RMB deposits halving in a few months, HKMA revamps its RMB liquidity facility, Singapore Exchange and Moscow Exchange see surging RMB trade volumes, Shanghai Gold Exchange expands its list of assets that can be used as collateral for trading to A-shares and foreign currencies, and Deutsche Bank joins OTC Clear as a clearing member.

Intercontinental Exchange expects to launch its ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Clear Singapore platforms on November 17 with five new contracts.

Citi has appointed David Ratliff to the newly created position of head of public sector banking for Asia Pacific. The move is part of the bank’s strategy to combine corporate and investment banking alongside markets and securities services coverage of public sector clients in the region.

Judy Hsu is taking over as Standard Chartered's chief executive for Singapore from October 1.

HSBC has named former CLSA banker Andrew Maynard as head of sales trading and execution services for Asia Pacific equities, along with three other fresh senior hires for the unit.

Cross-border capital raising within Asean is set to become easier following the release of a handbook detailing a streamlined framework for issuers.

In this round-up, Russian bank VTB tightens co-operation with China Development Bank, latest Hong Kong and Singapore deposit data, the Azeri state oil fund reports first holdings of RMB in its foreign currency reserves, and Bank of China and China Construction Bank H1 2015 reports highlight progress in cross-border RMB business.

Singapore’s equity market appears jinxed this year following the failure of Jiangxi Jiangling Chassis’ S$49m ($34.8m) IPO, which would have been the first transaction to adopt the direct listing framework (DLF) with China. With the trade now in tatters, observers reckon it is time for the Lion City to rethink its IPO strategy, writes Rev Hui.

Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, has expanded its international footprint to Australia with the launch of a Sydney branch this week.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has put Sanjeev Kumar at the helm of its new event finance team, created to serve the financing and investment needs of its corporate clients across Asia ex-Japan and Oceania.

Jiangxi Jiangling Chassis Co’s IPO on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) is off the table, with the S$49m ($35m) transaction falling victim to the global sell-off in equity markets that took hold last week and saw investors running for the hills on all things China.