Singapore Financial News

SC Ventures, the fintech investment arm of British bank Standard Chartered, will establish a “Digital Asset Joint Venture” investment company in the United Arab Emirates in partnership with a Japanese financial conglomerate, SBI Holdings. 

The Queen's Dragoon Guards Regiment as their colonel in chief on Wednesday. Earlier in the year, King Charles appointed Kate with the additional royal titles of commodore-in-chief of the Fleet Air Arm and the royal honorary air commodore of Royal Air Force Coningsby. The regiment, known as The Welsh Cavalry, holds a distinguished place in the British Army's Royal Armoured Corps and stands as the senior regiment of the British Army's lineage. Originating in 1959 from the merger of two dragoon guards units, the regiment boasts a storied history, having played active roles in various conflicts, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. During her visit, Princess Kate engaged with the regiment's senior officers and had the opportunity to observe service operations. Clad in full camouflage attire, she tested her hand at driving an armored vehicle, drone, and high mobility weapons platform. In addition to her interactions with personnel and their families, Kate commemorated the sacrifice of members lost in active service, just ahead of the Commonwealth's Remembrance Day.

India has appointed Sundaresan Narayanan as managing director, according to a company statement. Narayanan who has spent 16 years with the company was previously sales director for India. He has also worked at the company’s US headquarters.

Stocks edged lower as investors awaited clues on the path of interest rates from a raft of central bank officials including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. 

By Gaurav Dogra

Payments infrastructure business Cuscal, which was vying to be 2023’s second-biggest IPO after Redox, has deferred its run at the ASX boards.

Denso Wave Inc. engineer who invented the two-dimensional barcode known as quick response, or QR, had never imagined that his system of labelling automotive parts would one day become a crucial pillar of monetary exchange.

Binny Bansal is launching an AI-as-a-service startup that will target global customers, expanding to the fast-growing segment after making a fortune in Indian e-commerce. Bansal, who co-founded online retailer Flipkart and sold it to Walmart Inc., has hired 15 experts for the venture — mostly artificial intelligence scientists — and plans to quickly add more, according to people familiar with the matter. He wants to offer AI talent, products and services to corporate customers, emulating the business model of outsourcing providers like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Infosys Ltd., the people said, asking to not be named as the effort isn’t yet public.

Walmart Pays $3.5 Billion to Hike Stake in Flipkart The 40-year-old billionaire, who co-founded e-commerce major Flipkart and made a profit selling his stake to Walmart Inc., is looking to tap the country's large English-speaking young population to train more experts for new AI services. The focus will be on “training talent and offering services" from smaller cities in India, the report said. Bansal did not respond to queries, the report added.

By Ankur Banerjee

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -China's attempts to keep the yuan from falling contributed to last week's chaos in money markets, sources involved say, pointing to the pressure behind the scenes as Beijing tries to guide its economy and markets through a major slowdown.

ASK Automotive on Monday said it has mobilised a little over Rs 250 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial share sale which opens for public subscription on Tuesday. The company has allotted 88.71 lakh equity shares to 25 funds at Rs 282 apiece, which is also the upper end of the price band, according to a circular uploaded on the BSE website. At the price, the company has garnered Rs 250.17 crore from anchor investors.

China’s digital yuan has completed another historic CBDC first, with a Taiwan-based firm “successfully” issuing e-CNY bonds.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says he plans to bow out and hand over power to his deputy Lawrence Wong next year before the 2025 general election

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius started collecting feedback from industry stakeholders and the general public regarding the inclusion of metaverse within the financial services industry.

Hedge funds extended short positions on Treasuries to a record just before smaller-than-expected US bond sales and weaker jobs data spurred a rally.  Leveraged funds ramped up net short Treasury futures positions to the most in data going back to 2006, according to an aggregate of the latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission figures as of Oct. 31.

Hindenburg's damning report on the Adani Group earlier this year led to the sudden pullout of a proposed share sale in the flagship Adani Enterprises and triggered a $150-billion wealth erosion for investors. Chairman Gautam Adani had said that the report was aimed at damaging the conglomerate's reputation and generating a profit by driving down its stock prices. The group companies have since recovered most of the losses in their share prices and the conglomerate is back to business as usual, but reverberations of the Hindenburg attack could be felt deeper and longer in different ways. One fallout of the attack by the short-seller seems to be Adani's reported plan to exit the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business. The ports-to-renewable energy conglomerate is in talks with multiple multinational consumer goods companies to sell its entire 43.97% stake in Adani Wilmar Ltd, which owns the Fortune brand of edible oils and packaged grocery, executives familiar with the matter have told ET. Adani is expecting $2.5-3 billion for the stake in the joint venture with Singapore-based Wilmar International, which too owns 43.97% of the company, they said. A deal is likely to be finalised within a month, though neither of the companies has confirmed it. The product portfolio of Adani Wilmar includes brands such as Fortune, King's, Bullet, Raag, Avsar, Pilaf, Jubilee, Fryola, Alpha, Alife and Aadhar.

Euler Motors, which makes electric three-wheeler commercial vehicles, on Monday said it had raised Rs 120 crore in a funding round that included new investors such as the UK government-backed British International Investment, and Indian venture firm Green Frontier Capital. The firm did not disclose the valuation at which the funding happened, but founder and chief executive Saurav Kumar told ET that it was at a lower valuation than the previous fundraise—a down round, in startup parlance. The firm had last raised funding in October 2022, when it received an investment of $60 million at a $200-250 million valuation, per news reports and Tracxn.

It’s down to the short strokes at family-owned bus operator Ventura Group’s $1 billion auction.

Southeast Asia's largest lender DBS Group reported a 17% jump in third-quarter profit on Monday, benefiting from a high-interest rate environment.

By Florence Tan and Colleen Howe