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Showing posts with label Banking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banking. Show all posts

Monday 2 October 2023

Putting off charge for DuitNow QR payments, call for waiver for DuitNow QR payments permanent

 

New rules: PayNet said debit and credit card payments were subjected to MDR, while there is currently a MDR waiver for QR payments. — SHAARI CHEMAT/The Star© Provided by The Star Online

PETALING JAYA: Several financial institutions, including Public Bank and CIMB, have announced a waiver of the merchant discount rate (MDR) for vendors accepting payments via the DuitNow QR code platform.

CIMB has decided to postpone the MDR until the end of the year, while Public Bank will maintain the waiver until further notice. 

Public Bank has communicated on its website that it would waive the following fees for QR payment acceptance, effective from Oct 1 until further notice.

It said merchants would enjoy fee waivers for categories such as payment acceptance via Current and Savings Accounts, ewallets, and Maintenance Fee and API Integration Fee under the bank’s Enterprise Plan.

Credit card transactions under the Enterprise Plan will incur a charge of 0.25%.

The DuitNow QR service enables money transfers between banks and non-bank entities by scanning QR codes.

Related video: DuitNow QR charges won’t burden low income groups, says PM (Dailymotion)
 
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ALSO READ: Wee: Make waiver for DuitNow QR payments permanent


It was established by Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) under Bank Negara’s Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework.

Earlier yesterday, Paynet confirmed that vendors would be charged a transaction fee for payments received via the DuitNow QR code platform starting Nov 1.

It said there were charges for two different epayment types – the MDR and the 50sen fee for transactions exceeding RM5,000 for peer-to-peer fund transfers between personal QR codes, not payments to merchants.

ALSO READ: Charge on DuitNow QR payments will burden SME sector, says group

Merchants, it said, would receive the payment made by their customers after deducting the MDR, which is charged based on a percentage of the transaction value.

PayNet said debit and credit card payments were subjected to MDR, while there is currently a MDR waiver for QR payments.

Starting Nov 1, the MDR waiver for DuitNow QR payments would be lifted, it said in a statement, adding that the MDR was neither a new fee nor an additional charge.

“As an incentive to promote usage during the introduction of QR payments in 2019, the MDR was waived. This was extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”


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Friday 8 September 2023

Battle for deposits forecast to intensify



PETALING JAYA: As competition for deposits intensifies in the months ahead, one research house has bucked the trend by downgrading its outlook on the banking sector. It believes that competition for deposits could intensify towards year-end although pressure on net interest margins (NIMs) and operating expenditure may abate.

RHB Research commented that overall, banks have recorded decent second-quarter (2Q23) results, but they may not see a repeat of the hefty income in the first half of the year (1H23) from treasury and markets.

It said that with digital banks poised to launch operations in the months ahead – as exemplified by GX Bank (GXB) which began operations on Sept 1 – it will be interesting to note how conventional banks react to the attractive deposit rates these new entities are expected to offer.

RHB Research said in a note published yesterday that the revised guidance on NIMs would imply that banks are expecting 2H23 NIMs to be stable versus that of 1H23, or slightly better, while remaining watchful of loans exiting relief programmes for both the retail and small-medium enterprise or SME segments.

“For now, we forecast 2024 sector earnings growth to revert to the trend growth rate of 6% to 7% year-on-year (y-o-y), in line with our forecast corporate earnings growth of 7% to 8% y-o-y for 2024,” it said.

The research house pointed out that the banking sector has rallied by 8% since end-1H23 and by 9% since the 1Q23 results season, compared with 6% for the FBM KLCI, underpinned by the banks’ earnings holding up relatively better against the broader market.

It added: “Investors have started to look ahead towards NIM stabilisation – given that 1Q23 was likely the worst quarter in terms of NIM pressure. Also, 2Q23 earnings met expectations, while the declaration of interim dividends helped further support share prices, in our view.”

Meanwhile, casting a glance at Singapore’s GXS Bank Pte Ltd to ascertain what its subsidiary GXB would offer, RHB Research reported that GXS started off last year by offering depositors 0.08% interest in its regular savings and an additional 3.48% for its “saving pockets” accounts.

Calling GXS’ deposit account a “fuss-free product”, the research house commented, “Apart from offering better rates than some high interest savings accounts, the features that made GXS’ deposit product attractive were no minimum deposit amount, no maintenance fees and no tiered interest rate structure.”

The research unit added that the deposit account was well-received, and was followed up with the launch of micro loans, given the bank’s focus to render services to the underserved or unbanked segments such as gig economy workers and small businesses.

It revealed that in 2Q23, GXS began offering instant micro loans that the bank’s app users could apply for with ticket sizes from S$200 with tenures as short as two months, as interest rates start from 3.8% per annum.

As such, RHB Research is of the opinion that the features of GXB’s deposit product could be similar to that of GXS, while also expecting it to be similarly well received.

“That said, given the RM3bil cap to asset size during the foundational phase, the potential deposits that could migrate from conventional banks to digibanks should not be material, perhaps less than 1% of total deposits in the initial years,” it said.

It added that there had not been any significant deposit competition among Singapore banks last year as well.

Moreover, the research outfit said given the estimated deposit market share up for grabs in the Malaysian banking sphere, deposit competition should likewise be under control. “The key question is whether incumbent banks will stay rational,” it said.

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Spotlight on virtual banking licenses


Silicon Valley entrepreneurs left in the lurch and livid, as banks topple, regulators face reckoning


Any contagion from US banking crisis?


Malaysian authorities crack down on virtual money operator, MBI Group International


Monday 13 March 2023

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs left in the lurch and livid, as banks topple, regulators face reckoning

 

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down on Friday morning by California regulators and was put in control of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp..
 

 

 

In this photo illustration, Silvergate Capital Corporation

NEW YORK: Last Monday, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) warned a gathering of bankers in Washington about a US$620bil (RM2.8 trillion) risk lurking in the US financial system.

Last Friday, two banks had succumbed to it. Whether US regulators saw the dangers brewing early enough and took enough action before this week’s collapse of Silvergate Capital Corp and much larger SVB Financial Group is now teed up for a national debate.

SVB’s abrupt demise – the biggest in more than a decade – has left legions of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in the lurch and livid.

In Washington, politicians are drawing up sides, with Biden administration officials expressing “full confidence” in regulators, even as some watchdogs race to review blueprints for handling past crises.

To his credit, FDIC chair Martin Gruenberg’s speech this week wasn’t the first time he expressed concern that banks’ balance sheets were freighted with low-interest bonds that had lost hundreds of billions of dollars in value amid the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes.

That heightens the risk a bank might fail if withdrawals force it to sell those assets and realise losses.

But despite his concern, the toppling of two California lenders in the midst of a single workweek marked a stark contrast with the years after the 2008 financial crisis, when regulators including the FDIC tidily seized hundreds of failing banks, typically rolling up to their headquarters just after US trading closed on Fridays.

Even in the darkest moments of that era, authorities managed to intervene at Bear Stearns Cos and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. while markets were shut for the weekend.

In this case, watchdogs let cryptocurrency-friendly Silvergate limp into another workweek after it warned March 1 that mounting losses may undermine its viability. The bank ultimately said Wednesday it would shut down.

That same day, SVB signalled it needed to shore up its balance sheet, throwing fuel onto fears of a broader crisis.

A deposit run and the bank’s seizure followed. The KBW Bank Index of 24 big lenders suffered its worst week in three years, tumbling 16%.

“With Silvergate there was a little bit of a regulatory blind spot,” said Keith Noreika, who served as acting comptroller of the currency in 2017.

“Because they wound it down mid-week, everyone got a little spooked, thinking this is going to happen to others with similar funding mismatches.”

Representatives for the FDIC and Fed declined to comment.

The drama is already spurring arguments in Washington over the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul enacted after the 2008 crisis – as well as its partial rollback under President Donald Trump.

Trump eased oversight of small and regional lenders when he signed a far-reaching measure designed to lower their costs of complying with regulations.

A measure in May 2018 lifted the threshold for being considered systemically important – a label imposing requirements including annual stress testing – to US$250bil (RM1.1 trillion) in assets, up from US$50bil (RM226bil).

SVB had just crested US$50bi (RM226bil) at the time. By early 2022, it swelled to US$220bil (RM994.3bil), ultimately ranking as the 16th-largest US bank.

The lender achieved much of that meteoric growth by mopping up deposits from red-hot tech startups during the pandemic and plowing the money into debt securities in what turned out to be final stretch of rock-bottom rates.

As those ventures later burned through funding and drained their accounts, SVB racked up a US$1.8bil (RM8.1bil) after-tax loss for the first quarter, setting off panic.

“This is a real stress test for Dodd-Frank,” said Betsy Duke, a former Fed governor who later chaired Wells Fargo & Co’s board.

“How will the FDIC resolve the bank under Dodd-Frank requirements? Investors and depositors will be watching everything they do carefully and assessing their own risk of losing access to their funds.”

One thing that might help: SVB was required to have a “living will,” offering regulators a map for winding down operations.

“The confidential resolution plan is going to describe the potential buyers for the bank, the franchise components, the parts of the bank that are important to continue,” said Alexandra Barrage, a former senior FDIC official now at law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.

“Hopefully that resolution plan will aid the FDIC.”

The issues that upended both Silvergate and SVB, including their unusual concentration of deposits from certain types of clients, were “a perfect storm,” she said. That may limit how many other firms face trouble.

One complication is that the Fed has less room to help banks with liquidity, because it’s in the midst of trying to suck cash out of the financial system to fight inflation.

Another is that a generation of bankers and regulators at the helm weren’t in charge during the last period of steep interest-rate increases, raising the prospect they won’t anticipate developments as easily as their predecessors.

Indeed, even bank failures have been rare for a time. SVB’s was the first since 2020.

“We’re seeing the effects of decades of cheap money. Now we have rapidly rising rates,” said Noreika. “Banks haven’t had to worry about that in a long time.” — Bloomberg 

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Crypto shaken as SVB exposure depegs US$37bil stablecoin

  

Inflation data to test US stock market | The Star

 

SVB fallout spreads around world from London to Singapore

 

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Monday 26 July 2021

Govcoins and crypto to coexist

 



GOVERNMENT-backed coins and private cryptocurrencies will coexist for a while, despite rising regulatory walls set by the government to counter virtual coins, experts at a global webinar session said Thursday.

Noting that cryptocurrencies and digital currencies by governments are “two different animals,” they will coexist for now partly because current cryptocurrencies are not actually solving payment problems.

“How many of them (cryptocurrencies) are solving actual payment problem? Most of them are speculative and used as a means of storage,” said Nelson Chow, chief fintech officer of the Fintech Facilitation Office at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Chow said that some central bank digital currency, or CBDC, projects such as Multiple CBDC Bridge have the potential to solve decades-old problems for cross-border transactions. Multiple CBDC Bridge is a wholesale CBDC co-creation project between the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, the People‘s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates.

Under the current regulatory environment, John Kiffmeiste, a former senior financial sector expert at the International Monetary Fund, said that it is unlikely that the emergence of CBDC projects, now numbering nearly 60 according to Kiffmeiste’s data, would make crypto assets obsolete.

“CBDC has to operate within confines of tax regulations, anti-money laundering, KYC (know-your-customer) and so many other regulations whereas cryptocurrencies don’t operate in that environment,” the economist added.

Speakers at the webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network.Speakers at the webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network.

But, Kiffmeiste pointed out that as the regulatory and legislative walls are closing in on crypto assets, they will come under the same rules that other types of conventional currencies operate under. “In that case, that levels the playing field. Perhaps in that new world, CBDCs and cryptocurrencies coexist, but crypto assets become redundant as at least payment medium.”

Andrew Sheng, one of Asia’s top economists, stressed that authorities should understand the complex contextual backgrounds that have brought about the rising interest in CBDCs and cryptocurrencies.

Noting that the value of the cryptocurrency market has reached US$1.2tril – half the value of the official gold reserves – Sheng said cryptocurrencies had grown outside of the purview of public control. “This was the big lesson of the Covid-19, private cyber currencies will be with us whether you like it or not,” Sheng said.

The tug-of-war between regulators and cryptocurrencies is most apparent in the US in the area of stablecoins like USD Coin, a digital equivalent of the US dollar.

The US-proposed Stable Act will bring USD stablecoin issuers into conventional regulatory perimeters.

Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said that the cryptocurrency industry does not have to be allergic to regulations.

“There is always a notion that we have to choose either innovation or regulation. And I think it’s a false dichotomy. For new technological markets to mature and develop, they need to be trusted. They need to get to the point where ordinary people around the world are willing to participate in these activities at scale, and regulations are an important part of that,” Werbach said.

As to the increasing public controls on crypto assets, speakers called for regulations compatible with the emerging cryptocurrency industry. They shared a similar view that cryptocurrency companies and regulators must work together on bringing the industry into the system.

“Since innovation is always ahead of regulation, it is inevitable for regulators to rely on us when drafting policies. It is crucial to reshape their ‘legacy mindset’ and make them understand the nature and dynamics of cryptocurrency,” said Marcus Lim, CEO and co-founder of Zipmex.

They were speaking at a webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network entitled “The rise of Govcoins & What’s next for crypto”. Speakers at the July 22 virtual seminar included a group of experts in the US, Europe and Asia who are navigating the current situation surrounding the development of central bank digital currencies and challenges posed by and to cryptocurrencies.

Experts said that central bank digital currencies have a huge potential to solve many issues, ranging from decades-old problems involving cross-border transactions to digital transformation.

Kiffmeiste noted that almost 60 jurisdictions are currently exploring retail CBDCs, with countries like the Bahamas and China at the forefront, but they are divided in their motivations for issuing the CBDCs. For instance, emerging economies consider CBDCs as a way to spur financial digitalisation, while advanced economics mull digital currency as part of financial stability and to improve monetary policies. — The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

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Saturday 30 March 2019

Spotlight on virtual banking licenses


Bank Negara’s plan to issue up to three virtual banking licences has excited the local financial sector which otherwise has begun to look a little lethargic.

BANK Negara’s announcement this week which stated that it is looking to issue up to three virtual banking licences has excited the local financial sector which otherwise has begun to look a little lethargic.

The announcement comes at the same time as Hong Kong’s move to issue three licences of this type to a combination of companies partnering finance firms, namely Standard Chartered, BOC Hong Kong Holdings Ltd and online insurance company ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co.

Five more of such licences in the city are being processed.

In Malaysia, the announcement by Bank Negara is significant also because the central bank has not issued any new banking licences for many years now.

That said, both Hong Kong and Malaysia’s move to encourage pure online banking ventures is very much in line with the fact that fintech innovations are slowly but surely seeping into the daily lives of people globally, providing cheaper and more easily accessible financial services.

The idea of virtual banks – which theoretically means a bank without any physical branches whatsoever – however, is not entirely new.

In fact, many countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted it.

Some have failed, others continue to operate, taking deposits and giving out loans much like traditional banking outfits.

Closer to home, India, China, South Korea and Japan have ventured into this model.

Japan, for instance, went for the zero branch strategy as far back as the 1990s with the setting up of Japan Net Bank.

There have been other Internet banks there since then such as Seven Bank which has been providing financial services via ATMs across 7-Eleven convenience shops in Japan since the early 2000s.

In South Korea, the then-chair of the Financial Services Commission, Yim Jong-yong gave initial approval for the setting up of the country’s first two virtual banks back in 2015.

K Bank was its first, starting operations in April 2017 followed a few months later by kakaobank, which started with some W300 billion (about RM1.077bil) in start-up capital.

To be sure, virtual banks, which primarily target the retail segment including the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have existed even before the concept of fintech – which is basically using technology to provide improved financial services – gained prominence over the last few years.

The rise of fintech in recent times can be attributed to consumers becoming increasingly tech-savvy and more demanding when it comes to convenience on-the-go.

It also stems from the fact that there are millions of individuals who are unbanked or underbanked but who now have access to the Internet.

In China alone, mobile payments run in trillions of yuan.

It is perhaps this increasing savviness that is contributing to regulators the world over wanting to push for more virtual banks and easing guidelines to fit the concept in.

It is noteworthy that within the Asean region, Malaysia is among the first to attempt this virtual bank model.

Timo, Vietnam’s first bank sans any traditional branch, was officially launched in 2016 while nearest neighbour Singapore currently does not have any banks purely of this nature.Even so, Bank Negara governor Datuk Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus has said that the central bank is currently working towards releasing licensing guidelines for such operations only by the end of this year.

She has stressed that discussions with the few parties interested in setting up virtual banks in Malaysia are still at the preliminary stage.

Still, that’s not stopped industry people from raising questions, many of which are valid. For starters, notwithstanding theoretical definitions, what will be the exact definition of a local virtual bank ?  

What are the rules?

“Who can apply to operate such banks and will these guys be subject to the same rules that apply to traditional banks such as those involving capital requirements and such?” asks one senior banker attached to a regional bank.

While the jury is still out on rules that will apply in Malaysia should the idea materialise, a broad idea on this can be gleaned from the guidelines that have been set out by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

According to the HKMA, firstly, a “virtual bank is defined as a bank which primarily delivers retail banking services through the Internet or other forms of electronic channels instead of physical branches”.

HKMA’s guidelines include rules such as virtual banks having to play an active role in promoting financial inclusion when offering their banking services.

“While virtual banks are not expected to maintain physical branches, they should endeavour to take care of the needs of their target customers, be they individuals or SMEs,” it says, adding that virtual banks should not impose any minimum account balance requirement or low-balance fees on their customers.

In terms of ownership, the HKMA says that because virtual banks will mostly be focused on retail businesses covering a large pool of such clients, “they are expected to operate in the form of a locally-incorporated bank, in line with the established policy of requiring banks that operate significant retail businesses to be locally-incorporated entities”.

It also says that it is generally its policy “that a party which has more than 50% of the share capital of a bank incorporated in Hong Kong should be a bank or a financial institution in good standing and supervised by a recognised authority in Hong Kong or elsewhere”.

While the guidelines cover a lot more, it is worthwhile pointing out that the HKMA is of the view that “virtual banks will be subject to the same set of supervisory requirements applicable to conventional banks”, with some of the rules being changed in line with technological requirements.

It adds that in terms of capital requirement, “virtual banks must maintain adequate capital commensurating with the nature of their operations and the banking risks they are undertaking”.

Noticeable absence of tech players

Interestingly, in the first round of licences given out by the HKMA, there was a noticeable absence of major Chinese tech companies like Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Ant Financial, which many would have thought make obvious choices given their experience in carving out game-changing fintech-centric services especially in their home country of China.

“Mobile payment services offered by the likes of WeChat and Alipay are possible with Internet giants like Alibaba and Tencent behind the entire ecosystem, the fact that they were not included raised some eyebrows,” says one Hong Kong-based banking analyst.

In the same vein, Hong Kong has been criticised for not being proactive enough when it comes to encouraging financial start-ups and being overly protective of conventional banks as evident in its fintech sandbox programme of 2016, which was reportedly introduced to help traditional financial institutions try out new technology instead of supporting fresh start-ups.

“Still, a start is better than no start and we are looking forward to when these virtual banks start operating in nine months’ time,” says the analyst.

He adds that as long as security is not an issue, he hopes that virtual banks will be able to provide what traditional banks are “still not good at”, namely personalised customer service and cheaper services.

While it is early days yet in Malaysia, the general feedback is that virtual banks will be good, specifically for consumers who will have more choices.

But this will come at the expense of increased competition within the banking sector.

Analysts in Hong Kong have predicted that about 10% of revenue belonging to traditional banks there will be “at risk” over the next ten years because of the setting up of virtual banks.

Whether or not it will be the same for Malaysian banks remains to be seen.

A lot of this will depend on the guidelines that the central bank plans to set out in the months to come.

By Yvonne Tan The Star

Breaking ground with new banking concept

Backed by Ma: MyBank is backed by billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Alibaba affiliate company Ant Financial owns 30% of the online lender. (Photo: AFP)

(The Star Online/ANN) - DURING the height of the fintech revolution that’s been taking place over the last few years, one prominent banker in Malaysia made an interesting comment during a private dinner.

The banker said that while he welcomes fintech companies into the market, he wasn’t really afraid of losing any significant business to them. What he really feared, if anything, were the technology giants turning on a banking facility for the millions of users they have on their platforms.

“This Facebook Bank, Google Bank or Whatsapp Financial Group,” he quipped in half jest.

The logic is simple: with those platforms even then having had the myriad users globally, they are able to tap that user group to offer financial services.

But banking remains a highly regulated space. Not every technology company will be able to fulfill those criteria or even have such intentions.

Still, there are a number of virtual banks that have sprung up globally.

Here are some of the more notable ones in this part of the region.

China: WeBank

WeBank is China’s first private digital-only bank, launched in early 2015.

It is backed by tech giant Tencent Holdings – China’s biggest messaging and social networking company, which is also the operator of WeChat

Besides Tencent, its other backers include investment firms Baiyeyuan and Liye Group.

According to its website, WeBank provides consumer banking services through digital channels, as well as microcredits and other loan products.

The Internet-only lender had turned in a profit one year into operation thanks to surging demand for microloans among blue-collar workers and small entrepreneurs.

In 2017, WeBank made a net profit of 1.4 billion yuan or US$209mil, while its return on equity came in at 19.2%.

Its total lending in that year was nearly twice that of closest rival MyBank for the same period.

A recent stake sale of the bank values the company at US$21bil, making it one of the world’s largest “unicorn” companies.

Banking Tech recently reported that the lender is now eyeing an Australian expansion to compete with payments company Alipay, which is its largest rival.

MyBank

MyBank is backed by billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Alibaba affiliate company Ant Financial owns 30% of the online lender.

Not unlike WeBank, it has a focus on consumer and small and medium-sized enterprises, a sector underserved by traditional banks in China.

It uses credit data from the e-commerce giant’s AliPay product to conduct analysis for loans.

By circumventing human involvement, the bank said it was able to deliver loans to borrowers faster and up to 1,000 times less than it would cost brick-and-mortar banks to do so.

Like WeBank, it turned profitable one year into operations due to its less capital-intensive model.

Ant Financial is reportedly looking to go public in the near future.

India: Digibank

Singapore’s banking giant DBS Bank launched Digibank in April 2016 – a move that has enabled it to penetrate the Indian retail banking market.

Breaking away from conventional banking norms with their onerous form-filling and cumbersome processes, Digibank incorporates a host of ground-breaking technology, from artificial intelligence to biometrics.

DBS CEO Piyush Gupta expects the mobile-only bank to break even in three to four years, which according to him is not such a bad deal as compared to the traditional branch model, which needs 15 to 20 years to break even.

Digibank has over 1.5 million customers and it is handling them with 60 people rather than the 400-500 staff members it would normally need under the traditional model. Its cost-to-income ratio is in the low 30s.

Following its Indian venture, DBS went on to launch a similar mobile-led bank in Indonesia where the government expects the country’s digital economy to reach US$130bil or about 12% of its gross domestic product in 2020.

Other Singaporean lenders have also jumped on the bandwagon. United Overseas Bank (UOB) said it would launch “digital banks” for its five key markets in Asean, starting in Thailand. It aims to have three to five million customers in the next five years

Elsewhere, OCBC is also reportedly pursuing a similar idea in Indonesia.

Japan

Established in 2008, Jibun Bank reached profitability in less than five years. The outfit is a joint venture between Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and local mobile network operator, KDDI.

The story goes that instead of competing with each other, the two organisations decided it would make more sense creating a “separate bank” that complement their goals.

The Asian Banker in a case study on Jibun Bank noted that in its first year, the lender had accumulated over 500,000 new customers. By 2015, Jibun Bank’s asset volume surpassed that of Japan’s oldest Internet bank, Japan Net Bank. Asian Banker also noted that the lender’s deposit volume has grown to a size that is comparable to that of a mid-tier regional bank – all of this without the help of a branch footprint.  

South Korea: K-bank and Kakao Bank

The two South Korea’s online-only banks have signed up new customers by the millions since beginning operations in 2017.

Kakao Bank is run by mobile messaging Kakao and Korea Investment Holdings, while K-bank is operated by telco KT.

The authorities there are hoping that K-bank and Kakao Bank would spur growth in a banking industry that has stagnated amid rising credit costs, narrowing interest margins and heavy regulation.

The Financial Times in an October 2017 report wrote that about 300,000 new accounts were opened with Kakao Bank in the 24 hours following its launch in late July. This figure was more than what traditional banks in South Korea got in a year through online channels. And as at end-September that year, it had already garnered 3.9 million users.

The news agency said that Kako Bank users can wire money abroad for just a tenth of typical commission fees.

Its peer K-bank, meanwhile, attracted over half a million users in the few months following its April 2017 launch.

In contrast, international banks operating traditional branch networks in the country were looking at downsizing their branches.

Early this year, Shinhan Financial Group inked a deal with mobile app maker Viva Republica to set up an Internet-only bank, making it the third player in the game.

by gurmeet kaur The Star

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Sunday 22 July 2018

The rich are becoming richer



They are becoming richer at a faster rate too


DON’T the rich always grow richer, while the poor well, remain poor.

If you’re already disheartened, it gets worst. The rich are getting richer, and at a faster rate too.

A 36-page report released by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) last month showed that global personal financial wealth grew by 12% in 2017 to US$201.9 trillion.

This total, roughly 2.5 times as large as the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the year (US$81 trillion), more than doubled the previous year’s rate, when global wealth rose by 4%.

It also represented the strongest annual growth rate in the past five years in dollar terms.

“The main drivers were the bull market environment in all major economies, with wealth in equities and investment funds showing by far the strongest growth and the significant strengthening of most major currencies against the dollar,” said BCG in the report.

The increasing millionaires and billionaires now hold almost half of global personal wealth, up from slightly less than 45% in 2012, says BCG. In North America, which had US$86.1 trillion of total wealth, 42% of investable capital is held by people with more than US$5mil in assets. Investable assets include equities, investment funds, cash and bonds

In terms of asset classes, US$121.6 trillion (60%) of global wealth took the form of investable assets – mainly equities, investment funds, currency and deposits, and bonds, with the remaining US$80.3 trillion (40%) held in non-investable or low-liquidity assets such as life insurance, pensions funds, and equity in unquoted companies.

Residents of North America held over 40% of global personal wealth, followed by residents of Western Europe, with 22%. The strongest region of growth was Asia, which posted a 19% increase. All wealth segments grew robustly, but high growth rates were especially prevalent in the uppermost wealth segments.

The market sizing review encompasses 97 countries that collectively account for 98% of the world’s gross domestic product.

The personal wealth bands are generally measured as such:

1. Retail: below US$250,000

2. Affluent: between US$250,000 to US$1mil

3. Lower High Net Worth (HNW): between US$1mil and US$20mil

4. Upper HNW: between US$20mil and US$100mil

5. Ultra HNW: above US$100mil

Everybody is getting richer

The US is home to the largest number of people with more than US$20mil. Globally, the classes of the ultra-rich are expected to reach 671,000 by 2022.


Meanwhile, the Middle East is the region with the greatest share of wealth held in investable assets US$3.1 trillion of a total US$3.8 trillion. Western European residents held 56% in currency and deposits, while in North America the attention was on equities and investment funds, with 62% of US$47 trillion of investable wealth parked in those assets.

Should personal wealth creation continues at the rate of the past few years, BCG forecasts a compounded annual growth rate of about 7% from 2017 to 2022, in US dollar.

Events like stock market corrections and geopolitical uncertainties could knock that down to 4%.

In a worse-case scenario, such as a major economic crisis, global wealth might produce a compound growth rate of only 1% over five years, the study found.

BCG says opportunities abound for wealth managers seeking to increase their focus on different client segments.

For example, despite being far apart on the wealth spectrum, both the above US$20mil segment (upper HNW and ultra HNW) and the affluent segment are attractive because they represent very large wealth pools with high growth rates.

In 2017, the upper HNW and ultra HNW segments held more than US$26 trillion in investable wealth.

US residents held over 30% of this wealth, making the US easily the largest country of origin.

Other economic areas with large pools of ultra HNW investable assets include developing markets such as China (in second place), Hong Kong, India, Russia and Brazil, and developed markets such as Germany (in third place), France and Italy.

The share of wealth held by upper HNW and ultra HNW individuals varies widely aong the top 15 countries, ranging from 47% in Hong Kong to 8% in Japan.

Over the next five years, the upper HNW and ultra HNW segments wealth is likely to post the highest growth across all regions.

“Financial institutions looking to acquire and serve these segments will need to bring a broad international skill set to the table,” said BCG.

Affluent individuals


Afluent individuals is a segment whose population is burgeoning, hold a large and increasing amount of the world’s personal wealth at US$17.3 trillion or 14% of investable assets in 2017. (see chart)

This group of about 72 million people represents the growing middle class and many of its members will become the millionaires of tomorrow.

“We expect the wealth of this segment to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 7% over the next five years, increasing its pool of wealth to nearly US$25 trillion. To successfully tap into this segment, wealth managers must have at their disposal an efficient service model and significant skill in and innovative digital technologies,” said BCG.

Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneur segment represents another attractive opportunity for wealth managers to tap into money in motion and provide needed services.

“We expect these individuals, who have equity in their own companies – recorded as unquoted equities (non-investable wealth) – to significantly increase their pool of investable assets, by liquidating some or all of their equity through sales and by earning new wealth through their entrepreneurial activities. The largest pools of entrepreneurial wealth are in the US, France, Italy and Japan.  

Asia

Personal wealth in Asia grew by 19% to US$36.5 trillion, with residents of China holding nearly 57% of that amount, and the region registered per capita wealth of US$13,000. Although the asset allocation share of equities ad investment funds has grown over the past five years (from 22% in 2012 to 31% in 2017), Asia remains a cash-and-deposit-heavy region, with 44% of personal wealth held in this asset class. We project regional wealth to grow over the next five years at a CAGR of 12%.

Meanwhile Switzerland remains the largest offshore centre, domiciling US$2.3 trillion in personal wealth in the country. The next largest booking centres are Hong Kong (US$1.1 trillion) and Singapore (US$0.9 trillion) which have grown at yearly rates of 11% and 10% respectively – more than three times the rate (3%) of Switzerland over the past five years.

Over the next five years, BCG feels off

By Tee Lin Say, Starbiz


Wednesday 9 August 2017

Bitcoin must not in your retirement financial planning portfolio


Bitcoin investments have undeniably become a trend among savvy investors in search of the golden goose, but one financial planner is against the use of it as part of the financial planning portfolio for retirement.

Max Growth Wealth Education Sdn Bhd managing director Nicholas Chu said one should not use bitcoin as part of the retirement portfolio and the public must be well aware of the risk in bitcoin trading before getting in.

“It is not asset-backed, it is very unsecure. It is, basically, you want to participate in the future changes. It’s not a proper financial planning way. It is just an experimental thing that you want to go through in this era, but it is not a proper investment product,” he told SunBiz.

“I definitely don’t agree if they use this for their financial planning. But for those who are able to try new ventures, they can go ahead provided they have extra money. If this doesn’t affect their existing financial planning, then I’ll leave it to them. We need to tell them the pros and cons of this investment. It’s up to the clients to do the final decision,” he said.

Chu cautioned on the uncertainties of bitcoin trading, which is driven by market forces. “It is beyond anybody’s control, all the participants contribute to the bitcoin value. From that, I can say that there are a lot of uncertainties in the future,” he said.

Nonetheless, with the setting up of a few bitcoin exchanges, Chu noted that there will be demand and supply with tradeable markets available.

Bitcoin was the best-performing currency in 2015 and 2016, with a rise of 35.8% and 126.2% respectively.

Year to date, bitcoin prices have leaped more than three times. It stood at US$2,840 (RM12,140) as at 5pm last Friday.

Bitcoins are by the far the most popular cryptocurrency, which exists almost wholly in the digital realm and has no asset backing it. Bitcoin generation, known as mining, while open to anyone with a “mining application” on their computer, needs a great deal of computing power to solve complex algorithms which are later verified with the entire bitcoin network.

Colbert Low, founder of bitcoinmalaysia.com, said the recent spike in bitcoin prices could be partly due to the legalisation of bitcoin by the Japanese government.

He is unsure if the sharp rise in bitcoin prices will create a price bubble, but stressed that one cannot judge its price movement based on the “old economic theory”.

“This is a new economy based on a different model. It’s very hard to say,” Low opined, noting that there has been a growing number of retail outlets that accept bitcoin.

He foresees the usage of bitcoin propagating, especially in different types of payment methods.

However, Low opined that there will not be any “big movement” in the local market if the regulators do not regulate bitcoin.

“Our new Bank Negara governor is forward thinking and he is very much into fintech, technology and innovation. So there would definitely be improvement,” Low said.

The positive development of blockchain will be a catalyst for the growth of bitcoin, he added.

“Blockchain is a real thing that will change the way the IP system is architectured. We need to go down to a deeper level to see how blockchain can change the current problem and solve it.

“There are a lot of projects right now, over 500 companies are looking at this (blockchain) right now. Even IBM, HP and Microsoft are looking at it.”

Blockchain refers to distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, secure from tampering and revision. Bitcoin is just an application or software that runs on blockchain technology.

“If you look at blockchain technology, government agencies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are looking at it. This is the best way to secure your data,” Low said, noting that the usage of bitcoin will help reduce operating cost.

Currently, there are about 16 million bitcoins in the market and the number is capped at 21 million.

Bank Negara has said that it does not regulate the cryptocurrency and advised the public to be cautious of the risks associated with the usage of such digital currency.

Source: By Lee Weng Khuen sunbiz@thesundaily.com

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