Banking and financial services policy and regulation

ASEAN, now on its first year of economic unification, needs to decouple from China and become much better at telling the global community about its economic prospects, Citi’s regional fund services experts said. In the past, ASEAN had benefited from its robust trade with China, with ...

Staff at the World Bank delivered a broadside against its sitting president this week, saying the global lender faced a “crisis of leadership” and risked irrelevance on the world stage. The rebuke, made in an open letter from the Bank’s staff association, came as informal talks ...

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen their cooperation in promoting their countries as a single tourism destination. The countries’ leaders agreed on their tourism partnership during the “Four Countries, One Destination” conference held in Yangon, Myanmar, on July 31 under the ...

FPT Corporation has been selected by Myanmar Payment Union as the prime investor to implement a national financial switching system, the company said on 1 August. The entire financial switching system will be funded and implemented by FPT in a year. Currently, over 95 percent of transactions ...

AT the CB Bank branch in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Yangon, there’s a dedicated “Japan desk”, where an employee of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ sits to handle any Japanese corporate business that comes their way. The Japanese bank’s presence at Thilawa is no ...

For the last ten years, the State Bank of Vietnam has said it would restructure its operations. The government has instructed SBV to continue the plan on restructuring the banking system in 2016-2020. But the restructuring has not been implemented, though SBV once drew up a ...

Credit life insurance is a concept that dates back centuries but is still new to the Cambodian market. More Cambodians than ever are turning to microfinance for money to cover their small business endeavours or pay expenses, and, increasingly, they are looking to protect their ...

While Cambodia’s crowded banking sector has enjoyed strong growth, the majority of consumers surveyed have cited dissatisfaction with banking services as a main impediment for the sector’s confidence and future growth. “Banks need to serve the people and teach them how to spend, invest and save ...

China called for a calm response to the U.K.’s unprecedented Brexit vote, saying a “stable and united European Union was in the interest of all parties.”“The decision of leaving the EU has an impact on everything, and we believe all related parties must calm down ...

Yangon business leaders have joined a call for the new government to address exchange rate regulations, which they say are causing difficulties for exporters trying to convert their earnings back into Myanmar kyat. The problem is that the Central Bank only allows lenders to conduct foreign ...