Region Asia-Pacific Financial News

Morgan Stanley is cutting at least 50 investment banking jobs in Asia Pacific, three sources said, becoming the latest among global banks to scale back operations in the region mainly due to a slump in China markets. The layoffs affect around 13% of the Wall Street bank's Asia investment banking workforce of 400 in the region, according to one of the sources.

Lloyd Austin spoke with his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun via video teleconference Tuesday, in the first substantive talks between the superpowers' defense chiefs in nearly 18 months. The United States has been working to strengthen defense cooperation with its allies in the Asia-Pacific region to counter China's growing influence but also wants to maintain lines of communication with Beijing to prevent tensions from spiraling out of control. «The two officials discussed US-PRC defense relations and regional and global security issues,» the Pentagon said in a statement, referring to the People's Republic of China.

The move would make Hong Kong the first domicile in the Asia-Pacific region to approve a crypto-backed, exchange-based investment fund. It would also put the island in prime position in the race to become the digital assets hib for the region.

Lok Sabha polls, Chinese cyber and influence operatives, along with North Korean cyber agents may divert their efforts with these electoral processes, ToI reported quoting a Microsoft analysis. Starting from April 19 to June 1, India will cast their vote to choose 543 members of the Lower House of the Parliament.. The general election polls will be held in seven phases: April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1, with Bihar, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh conducting voting across all seven stages. The results will be announced on June 4, 2024. «China will, at a minimum, create and amplify AI-generated content that benefits their positions in these high-profile elections. While the impact of such content in swaying audiences remains low, China’s increasing experimentation in augmenting memes, videos, and audio will continue—and may prove effective down the line,» the Microsoft analysis claimed.

The report from Juniper Research predicts that embedded finance revenue will exceed $228bn by 2028 thanks to advances in technology.

Ant Group’s Web3 security solutions provider ZAN has become a validator on Core Chain – EVM-compatible blockchain secured on Bitcoin.

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By Farah Master, Tingshu Wang and Xiaoyu Yin

NEW DELHI : India’s tourism sector is yet to recover from the pandemic years, with international travellers who bring in higher tourism dollars preferring other countries in the Asia-Pacific region over domestic destinations. Despite a resurgence of global travel last year, India welcomed only about 7.24 million international travellers in 2023, according to the ‘India State Ranking Survey’ by hospitality consultancy Hotelivate and The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). Prior to the pandemic, in FY20, India received about 10.93 million international travellers, as per India’s tourism ministry. Of them, about 6.98 million were non-resident Indians visiting family and friends back home.

European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp has received in-principle approval for its license application to offer digital asset services in Singapore. 

global economic slowdown and declining confidence in the economic outlook in Asia-Pacific region, India's mid-market businesses are hopeful of positive prospects in the near future, according to a report by Grant Thornton. Nearly 80 per cent of Indian mid-market businesses maintain a positive economic outlook in the next 12 months, up from 78% in H1 2023, the International Business Report (IBR) revealed. The survey conducted in the latter half of 2023 also noted that this is fuelled by India's domestic market and government initiatives such as 'Make in India', which are creating a favorable environment for growth.

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund and Goldman’s asset-management arm struck a partnership to invest alongside each other in the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular focus on India. The pact follows a similar mandate the New York-based firm received from the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System in September.

The BFSI sector has grown by leaps and bounds, transitioning India from a primarily cash-driven economy to one that is now highly digitised. Fintech, today, has entered the mainstream, focusing on increasing profitability and curtailing risk. The fintech ecosystem has witnessed tremendous technological advancements and is projected to grow sixfold from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to outpace the US and climb up the ranks to become the world’s leading fintech market by 2030. 

Google has introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will implant the technology on smartphones

By Nell Mackenzie

Circle, a crypto issuer, reported a significant increase in remittances flowing through Asia via its USDC stablecoin. USDC is a cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar and is backed by liquid cash and cash-equivalent assets. It has settled over $12 trillion in blockchain transactions since its introduction in 2018.

Australia’s online safety watchdog says the owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter has slashed its global trust and safety staff by 30% including an 80% reduction in the number of safety engineers since billionaire Elon Musk took ...

Indian-American Congressman Shri Thanedar on Wednesday condemned the recent attacks on Hindu temples in the US, saying such incidents should not be tolerated. «We should not tolerate any kind of phobia, Hindu phobia. The religions are about love, helping each other and doing good things for each other. And these attacks on Hindu temples--I strongly condemn them and we must not tolerate that. I serve on the Homeland Security Committee and I am speaking with my committee members about helping religious organisations do better ability. Provide them the funds and resources they need to protect the religious organisations and help them fight any kind of Hindu phobia, any kind of hatred that we see,» Thanedar said.

India Inc is likely to see a median pay hike of 9.7% in 2024, compared to 9.5% last year, said the survey, as companies try to balance a focus on cost management with a strong emphasis on retention of critical talent.

Generative AI (GenAI) is likely to assume 30% of traditional marketing's mundane tasks by 2027 in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, suggests a new report from IDC. GenAI will take over jobs like SEO, content and website optimisation, customer data analysis, segmentation, lead scoring, and hyper-personalisation, according to the report.

India’s real estate sector has been an essential contributor to the country’s economic development, especially in a year marked by resilience and growth. The sector has demonstrated sustained growth and adaptability, highlighting its crucial role in steering India’s economic progress towards prosperity and innovation. The commercial realty market, which includes office spaces and retail developments, showed significant growth trends throughout the year. The commercial realty sector is expected to continue growing in office leasing, supported by India-facing businesses and Global Capability Centers (GCC).