|By Raj Samani |As 2018 draws to a close, we should perhaps be grateful that the year has not been entirely dominated by ransomware, although the rise of the GandCrab and SamSam variants show that the threat remains active. Our predictions for 2019 move away from simply providing an assessment on the rise or fall of a particular threat, and instead focus on current rumblings we see […]
|By Matein Khalid| The post Lehman decade was defined by the Federal Reserve’s “lender of the last resort” strategy to stabilize the global banking system. The American central bank expanded its balance sheet from $900 billion to $4.5 trillion. This led to a collapse in money market rates, Treasury bond yields and asset market volatility. Bull markets are born in panic and die in a frenzy of […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Smart Dubai and IBM announced the launch of the Dubai Blockchain Platform, the first government-endorsed blockchain platform as-a-service in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Delivered through an IBM Cloud environment and built locally in the UAE, the enterprise-ready platform will serve as a stepping stone for organizations in the UAE and globally to transition their blockchain testing and development into full-production. It will also […]
Saxo Group India, part of the Saxo Bank Group, has expanded its presence with the move to a new and bigger office in Gurugram to accommodate future growth with a plan to increase headcount by 20 % in 2018. Established through an acquisition in 2010, Saxo Group India employs more than 500 people primarily within IT and operations. The organisation in Gurugram works with Saxo Bank’s headquarter […]
|By Matein Khalid| 2018 has been a difficult year for GCC and Dubai real estate. Rents and capital values continued to fall in the third quarter, albeit at different rates in specific segments and micro-markets. The Federal Reserve’s latest monetary tightening at the September 26 FOMC means the six months Emirates Interbank Offered Rate (EIBOR), the bellwether rate for floating rate home mortgages in the UAE is […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) should continue to breathe a little easier in the year ahead. Barring any major increase in geopolitical risk or a sharp fall in oil prices, 2019 should mark a stabilization of GCC banks’ financial profiles, following three years of significant pressure, Standaard & Poor’s said in its latest review. What’s more, with the transition to IFRS […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Emirates is looking at taking over Abu Dhabi’s Etihad airline, Bloomberg reported quoting people familiar with the matter. If the plan materialises, it would create the world’s biggest carrier by passenger traffic. Bloomberg said the talks, which are at a preliminary stage, would see Emirates acquire the main airline business of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, which would keep its maintenance arm. Both airlines initially declined […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| In an unusual move, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund,which is a stake holder in Elon Musk’s Tesla, has invested $1 billion in rival Silicon Valley start-up Lucid Motors. This means the Saudis will benefit, irrespective of which new generation car company achieves leadership in this automobile sector. Lucid is set to start making its first model, the Air sedan, in 2020. The comapny […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| DP World said it will continue to pursue all legal means to defend its rights as a shareholder and concessionaire in Doraleh Container Terminal SA (DCT) in the face of Djibouti’s blatant disregard for the rule of law and respect for commercial contracts. On 9 September the President of Djibouti enacted a decree which purportedly transferred the shareholding of Port de Djibouti SA […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Barwa Bank and International Bank of Qatar (ibq) have announced that they have signed a final agreement regarding the merger of the two banks to create a leading Sharia compliant financial institution with a solid financial position and robust liquidity to support Qatar’s economic growth and finance development initiatives in line with Qatar National Vision 2030. According to this merger agreement, the two […]
By James M. Dorsey Less than a week in office, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has made blasphemy one of his first issues, empowering militants and initiating international moves, long heralded by Saudi Arabia, that would restrict press freedom by pushing for a global ban. Mr. Khan, in his first address as prime minister to the Pakistani Senate, said he intended to raise the blasphemy issue in […]
By James M. Dorsey Financial injections by Qatar and possibly China may resolve Turkey’s immediate economic crisis, aggravated by a politics-driven trade war with the United States, but are unlikely to resolve the country’s structural problems, fuelled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s counterintuitive interest rate theories. The latest crisis in Turkey’s boom-bust economy raises questions about a development model in which countries like China and Turkey witness moves towards […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) has announced the distribution of more than AED 23.4 billion in cash dividends to around 406 thousand investors on behalf of listed companies in 2018. The cash dividends paid out by listed companies increased around 5.5% compared AED 22.2 billion in the year 2017. This announcement is a confirmation of ADX’s success in providing a distinct investment climate and […]
By James M. Dorsey An offer by a Saudi-backed bank to lend financially strapped Pakistan US$4 billion is likely intended to bolster Saudi influence when former international cricket player Imran Khan is sworn in in the coming week as the South Asian country’s next prime minister. The offer was most immediately related to a statement by Asad Umar, Pakistan’s new finance minister-in-waiting, that Pakistan would decide on whether to seek […]
|By Allan Leinwand| According to a recent research report from PwC, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to account for approximately 13.6% of the United Arab Emirates’ GDP in 2030. However, AI is seen by many as being either a hero or a villain. On one hand, AI is currently driving nearly every CIO’s agenda because it intelligently automates work processes, making it possible to do things that have never been […]
|By John Hardy| Just ahead of the US jobs data on Friday, the People’s Bank of China hiked reserve requirements on CNY forwards (for onshore institutions) a move clearly aimed at stemming the one-way CNY depreciation ahead of the 7.00 level in USDCNY and as the CFETS-defined RMB basket reached the bottom of its range from a year ago. The requirements went into effect today and haven’t triggered additional […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| After a landmark ruling in Germany last week that social media accounts can be inherited by a person’s beneficiaries, DIFC has announced that those who register inheritance Wills with the authority can include such assets in their Wills. Lawyers and lawmakers around the globe have been grappling with the legal status of online assets, not just personal data on sites such as Facebook […]
|By Saifur Rahman, Executive Editor| UAE Central Bank said, it has downgraded seven money exchanging houses for violating the Central Bank’s regulations, including Anti-Money Laundering rules. The UAE has 140 money exchange houses with 835 branches spread across the length and breadth of the country while some of the exchange houses have branches in other countries. Following the downgrading, Taher Exchange Est., Al Hadha Exchange LLC, Al Hemriya Exchange […]
Dubai Government’s trade licensing body – the Department of Economic Development (DED) – said, it has exempted companies and business establishments in Dubai from all fines imposed on them and granted them time till end of 2018 to renew their licenses. “The DED launched a package to make it further easier for businesses to clear fines and renew their licenses. The package will allow businesses to pay […]
|By Matein Khalid| Crude oil prices plunged by 7% in two sessions as Saudi Arabia and Russia confirmed that they would release 1 million barrels a day in the wet barrel markets. Speculative froth in the oil futures markets vanished, to be replaced by a new trading calculus based on the realities of supply and demand – as well as the unknowable (and unquantifiable!) arc of […]
By James M. Dorsey A look at a decade of failed social, economic and political reform in Jordan goes a far way to explain recent mass anti-government protests demanding the resignation of the government. The protests, prompting concerns about the survival of the Hashemite dynasty, also bear witness to the fallout of the region’s epic power struggles and the pitfalls of government failures to respond to long-standing […]
|By Saifur Rahman, Executive Editor| The International Monetary Fund (IMF) finally recognised the Islamic banking principles by endorsing a proposal on the use of the Core Principles for Islamic Finance Regulation (CPIFR), according to a statement. This effectively means that the IMF now accepts Islamic financial principles to become a globally accepted system in parallel to the conventional interest-based economy. “The CPIFR will complement the international architecture for financial […]
By Arabian Post Staff Macro economic and market conditions remained stable in the UAE in 2017 and the global and domestic economic growth and outlook improved during the year. In financial markets, the money market spreads, dirham-dollar forward points and credit market spreads narrowed reflecting ample liquidity and confidence in the UAE financial system. The UAE’s economic growth and outlook showed an improvement in 2017, but the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Emirates Group reported a 67 percent jump in net profits to $1.1 (Dh4.1 billion) billion in 2017-18 financial year ending March 31, 2018 compared to the previous year, with revenues reaching $27.9 billion (Dh102.4 billion), crossing the Dh100 billion mark for the first time in the history of the 32 year old airline group that includes Emirates Airline and its ground handling and ticketing arm, […]
