Singapore

Newcomers still have to create large funding and capital bases to contend with incumbents.

Advisory fees for M&A deals shrank 49% to $76m.

It recovered from 9% decrease in the first two months of the year.

They are the top borrowers in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

And banks in Nigeria are tapping on a growing youth demographic.

Paris Michele was discovered to have falsified company emails and forged documents.

It allows clients to personalise watchlists and price alerts.

The move aims to encourage users to adopt digital payments.

Most of the buybacks by DBS were done in May, when the share price fell 14%. Singapore banks’ share buybacks have picked up steam in 2019. A Maybank Kim Eng report noted that DBS and OCBC have bought back more shares YTD and much earlier than they did last year. Maybank KE analyst Thilan Wickramasinghe expounded that DBS has bought back 25% YTD of the volume it bought in 2018. “Importantly, this was mostly done in May 2019, when its share price fell 14%. Historically, DBS was most active buying back shares in Q3/Q4,” the analyst said. Meanwhile, OCBC has bought back 60% of the volume it bought in 2018 and much earlier, the analyst added, noting that the DBS and OCBC buybacks in Q2 2019 are equivalent to 55% and 53%, respectively, of their treasury shares balances. Also read: Singapore's big banks are on a buying spree as share buybacks hit $116.5m “We believe this is an indicator of emerging value. Our scenario analysis suggests that non-performing loans (NPLs) would need to rise 35-80% from current levels to bump credit charges up to levels seen during the O&M crisis and GFC,” the analyst explained. The buyback spree happening in Singapore can also be observed in other markets such as the United States, Natixis chief economist for the Asia and Pacific Alicia Garcia-Herrero and INSEAD finance professor Theo Vermaelen said in a previous interview.

And banks in the EU have paid $24.2b to central bank since 2014. From Reuters: 

Blame higher delinquencies from SMEs and non-financial firms.

It only launched the feature four months ago. DBS revealed that it has seen a 70% increase in digital transactions from its SME customers and 25% increase in transaction value since the bank launched DBS MAX four months ago, a mobile-based QR payment collection solution. The bank said that the adoption of DBS MAX has been steadily expanding with close to 2,000 merchants and 3,000 over outlets across Singapore, enjoying its popularity the most from customers in the F&B and retail sectors. The scheme is especially helpful for SMEs adopting digital forms of payment collection as it eliminates the time and effort in managing and depositing cash in banks. Overall cash transactions for SME customers using DBS MAX have significantly decreased by about half. “This correlates to the over four in five Singaporeans who are already using some form of e-payment, as digitalisation brings about more ease and convenience. This trend is set to continue with the increase in digital payments collections solutions targeted directly at SMEs such as DBS MAX,” the announcement said. DBS MAX has been rolled out in Hong Kong and India. DBS expects that more than three in five retail SMEs will sign up for the DBS MAX solution in the next 12 months.  

And PayPal injects $11m in Swedish financial startup Tink.

It will allow FX e-trading of over 130 currencies.

Housing loans fell to a three-month low at $202.76b.

And UniCredit eyes to sell $5.6b worth of bad loans.