Lenín Boltaire Moreno is in the lead after Sunday’s nail-biting presidential election in Ecuador. The anointed candidate of leftwing President Rafael Correa was close to the margin needed to avoid a second round against Guillermo Lasso, a conservative former banker, in a test for Latin America’s battered left. After a campaign that underlined the divisive legacy of Mr Correa, the US-trained economist who has been in power […]
India’s government is allowing app developers to use its biometric database of more than a billion citizens as part of an initiative called “India Stack.” The developers can use customers’ fingerprint and iris scans to compare against records stored as part of the government’s vast biometric data-collection program, to create new ways to access insurance, banking, healthcare and employment. As outlined in a Wall Street Journal article, […]
KUALA LUMPUR: The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) on Monday warned the public of bogus calls using its hotline number, 1-300-88-9980, alleged to be from a bank concerning credit card usage. “ABM would like to alert the public that such calls are fraudulent in nature,” the association said, adding that it received enquiries from the public about the phone calls purportedly made using ABMs hotline number. […]
Newly appointed New South Wales Minister for Finance, Services and Property Victor Dominello has said he plans to bring his data-driven expertise to his new portfolio, rewarding government agencies with an “innovation bonus” if they move away from a silo-ridden approach to IT and service delivery. Speaking at the Gartner 2017 APAC Data & Analytics Summit in Sydney on Monday, Dominello said he had his eye on […]
SYDNEY Asian share markets were mixed on Monday as political uncertainty globally kept the mood cautious, while the U.S. dollar dithered in a tight range ahead of a busy week for Federal Reserve events. Turnover was light with U.S. markets closed for the Presidents Day holiday. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS edged up 0.1 percent and back toward a 19-month peak reached last […]
Monday 04:30 GMT Overview Stock markets across Asia were mostly higher though currencies struggled to make much headway in a subdued session. Hot topic The US market is closed on Monday for the President’s Day public holiday. On Friday the S&P 500 climbed 0.2 per cent to a record high, capping a week in which the FTSE All World index topped its previous record peak from May […]
SINGAPORE The U.S. economy is on “sound footing,” a hawkish Federal Reserve official said on Monday in a speech that cautioned against asking the central bank to solve problems beyond its control such as low productivity growth. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, at a forum in Singapore, did not comment specifically on interest rates. However she has dissented in the past in favor of quicker rate hikes […]
Stock markets in the Middle East were mixed in modest trading volumes on Sunday with Saudi Arabia and Qatar outperforming because of support from the banking sector, while Egypt fell as the currency hit a three-month high. Two-thirds of the 12 listed banks on Saudi Arabia’s bourse gained, lifting the index 0.1 percent. Alawwal Bank added 2.7 percent, with most activity occurring in the last hour of […]
By Carl O’Donnell | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. food company Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O) withdrew its proposal for a $143-billion merger with larger rival Unilever Plc (ULVR.L), the companies said on Sunday, raising questions about whether Kraft could turn its focus to another target. Kraft had made a surprise offer for Unilever to build a global consumer goods behemoth that was flatly rejected on Friday by […]
Kraft Heinz, the Warren Buffett-backed US food group, dropped its $143bn pursuit of consumer products rival Unilever on Sunday, only two days after publicly confirming its interest in acquiring the Anglo-Dutch rival. Kraft Heinz said in a joint statement with Unilever that it had “amicably agreed to withdraw its proposal for a combination of the two companies”. A takeover would have created the world’s second-largest consumer goods […]
SINGAPORE — It is important at this juncture for the United States and China to articulate their overarching foreign policy objectives towards Asia, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said yesterday. During a panel discussion at the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Germany, Dr Ng said the US’ ability as a military power to continue its presence and influence in the Pacific was “not in doubt”. “But this […]
The EU’s Brexit negotiators expect to spend until Christmas solely discussing Britain’s divorce from the bloc, denying London any trade talks until progress is made on a €60bn exit bill and the rights of expatriate citizens. A narrow divorce-first approach favoured by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, would represent a big setback for Britain’s aim for a fast-track EU trade deal, completed by the end of […]
Here are the questions the FT Markets team will be pondering this week: What do retail flows mean? Money flows are widely watched but, like anything in markets, there is signal and then there is noise. Investors poured money into global stock funds last week, one when US stock markets set fresh records, and US long-only equity funds received the first net inflow of cash ($0.5bn) in […]
19 February 2017 Manama – (The 13th Annual Middle East Insurance Forum (MEIF 2017), being held in partnership with the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), is set to commence on 20 February 2017 in the Kingdom of Bahrain with the expected participation of more than 400 high level attendees to explore “Current Challenges and their Implications on the Regional Insurance Industry – The Road Ahead”, the theme of this year’s event. A […]
Photo Iraqi forces advance toward western Mosul on Sunday. Credit Khalid Al-Mousily/Reuters ERBIL, Iraq — Iraq’s government announced the beginning of an offensive on Sunday to take back the western half of Mosul from the Islamic State, nearly three years after the city was overrun by the terror group. Overnight, planes crisscrossed the sky over the city’s occupied half, carpeting the ground with leaflets, which made a […]
Saudi Arabia officials and executives of around 14 companies plan to embark on a marketing tour of Singapore and Hong Kong next month to attract Asian investors in the $430 billion stock exchange, banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. The HSBC Saudi Arabia Investment Forum will include stops in Singapore on March 1-2 and Hong Kong on March 3, the sources said. The trip reflects the rising […]
Finnish Prime Minister Sauli Niinistö made it clear to CNBC last week that while Russia’s actions involving Crimea must come to a peaceful resolution, the most important issues facing Europe right now are terrorism and migration. Despite Finland pledging $55 Million Euros to NATO, Niinistö also made it clear that European nations need to ultimately be responsible for their own security. I think that Europeans start to understand […]
By Michelle Price / ReutersHONG KONG — Hong Kong is beefing up its anti-money laundering and corporate disclosure laws in a move that some financial crime specialists say could lead to the exodus of billions of dollars in assets from the territory as people seek to avoid increased scrutiny. The Chinese territory’s government has been rattled by last year’s Panama Papers scandal, which showed that Hong Kong […]
Al-Nahedh: Structural Changes, Regulatory Compliance and Cyber Security Major Challenges Facing Banks 18 February 2017 Kuwait – Group Chief Executive Officer at Kuwait Finance House (KFH), Mazin Saad Al-Nahedh stressed the importance of practically facing the economic challenges facing the GCC banks in light of the fall in oil prices, indicating the necessity of applying best practices and highest standards in the structural changes, regulatory compliance and […]
Has the long-awaited consumer crunch finally arrived? A 0.2 per cent fall in the UK’s monthly retail sales at the start of the year has sent the pound tumbling this morning, amid concern that rising inflation may finally be putting a brake on the consumer-driven growth. The monthly figure was expected to rise 1 per cent. Sterling fell to £1.2418 against the dollar after the news, a […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. So what if Donald Trump strong-armed media advertisers in the same way he’s trying to get companies to keep jobs in the United States? The subject was broached by a faraway observer after Trump’s angry and rambling anti-press rhetorical screed […]
Two weeks ago, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble confirmed Donald Trump’s charge that the Euro is far “too low” for Germany, but said he is unable to do anything about it and instead blamed Mario Draghi. “The euro exchange rate is, strictly speaking, too low for the German economy’s competitive position,” he told Tagesspiegel on February 5. “When ECB chief Mario Draghi embarked on the expansive monetary […]
In an isolated area of Ecuador’s Amazon, the face of Lenín Moreno, the anointed successor of fiery leftist President Rafael Correa in Sunday’s presidential election, is plastered on billboards proclaiming “the future is unstoppable”. That future worries Mercedes Cabrera, a peasant leader in the village of Santiago de Panantza. She says she was snatched from her bed by state security forces and branded a terrorist after a policeman […]
18 February, 2017 ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court seized with the Panama Papers case, asking it to ignore the two Qatari letters produced by the Sharif family as evidence of their stance in the case. In the letters dated Nov 5 and Dec 22, 2016, former Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad […]
