Banking News

OCBC Bank's annual general meeting (AGM) will be held virtually on May 18, the lender told shareholders in an announcement yesterday. It is the second local bank to state its virtual AGM plans, after DBS Bank did so in mid-month amid the coronavirus outbreak. OCBC said earlier this month that it would postpone the meeting, which had been scheduled for April 30, pending changes to the law and rules on safe distancing and AGM teleconferencing. Now, the bank has confirmed that shareholders cannot attend the AGM in person. Instead, they must pre-register for ...

Whenever we encountered a deadlock in a decision, discussion or problem a few weeks ago, the natural refrain was "let's call for a meeting". That little luxury of huddling in a room to hash things out has become a distant memory - and almost a forbidden evil. Then there were the customary committee meetings, with far more people than required for good decision making. You may be familiar with them: steering committees and project committees - with reams of minutes and action items. With the advance of Covid-19, governments globally have rapidly put in place ...

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - OCBC Bank's annual general meeting (AGM) will be held virtually on May 18, the lender told shareholders in an announcement on Sunday morning (April 26). The original date was axed amid the deadly Covid-19 pandemic that has put the nation under lockdown. It is the second local bank to state its plans, after DBS unveiled virtual AGM plans in mid-April. Earlier this month, OCBC said it would postpone the meeting, which had been scheduled for April 30, pending changes to the law and rules on safe distancing and AGM tele-confer...

Singapore CIMB Singapore has raised the ire of customers with its move to raise the floor of certain mortgages pegged to the one-month Singapore interbank offered rate (Sibor) - with that floor rate now higher than the prevailing market rate. From May 18, customers on CIMB's...

SINGAPORE - Dough fritter company Xi De Li director Adrian Koh used to spend about 20 minutes at each of his customers' stalls around Singapore to collect and count his payment. He makes about 10 visits a day before bringing the money back to his office in Kaki Bukit where staff from the finance department will spend about six hours of their workday collating the cash brought in and printing out invoices, among other duties.

SINGAPORE - Companies are flocking to PayNow Corporate to make and receive payments as social distancing measures bring about a sea change in business operations. The amount transferred with the service hit $3.12 billion in February, a striking 713 per cent jump from the $383 million in the same month last year, the Association of Banks in Singapore noted on Thursday (April 23).

FRANKFURT (BLOOMBERG) - Wirecard said an independent audit has uncovered no substantial findings of questionable accounting methods so far, but added it isn't yet ready to reveal the full report. The company said KPMG didn't find anything in all four areas of the audit that would lead to a correction of its financial statements. The firm was looking into Wirecard's third-party partner business, merchant cash advance as well as business activities in India and Singapore. KPMG will report on its full findings in a presentation on April 27, the company said in ...

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - The Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) and Razer Fintech have agreed to provide fintech companies in Singapore bridge financing, equity or equity-linked instruments ranging from US$100,000 to US$1.5 million (S$143,000 to S$2.1 million), they said in a joint release on Thursday (April 23). The final sum depends on the fintech company's stage of growth and business requirements. Financial assistance is one of several measures the partners are rolling out to address key issues faced by local fintech players due to the Covid-19 ...

Margins are expected to shrink 6-10 bps compared to Q4 2019. Singapore’s big three banks are expected to post an average 38% YoY fall in earnings for the Q1 period on the back of spiking credit costs and falling credit card income, according to a report by Jefferies. Meanwhile, the banks’ non-interest income is expected to contract by 6-13% YoY, whilst revenue for the three banks will fall 2-4% YoY, due to falling card income, wealth management income, and weak stock prices. Whilst system loans and deposits grew 3.5% and 4.9% YTD respectively, pushed by b...

A more flexible Payment Services Act makes it easier for fintechs to apply full operations in Singapore. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has finally commenced the new Payment Services Act (PSA), repealing the Money-changing and Remittance Businesses Act and the Payment Systems (Oversight) Act. The new act, launched in January 2020, covers new types of payment services, such as digital payment token services, and adopts an activity-based licensing framework. It is expected to be enhanced under the new PSA in an effort to strengthen consumer protecti...

The bank has approved three times more loans in March compared to January. United Overseas Bank (UOB) today announced that it will be offering pre-approved loans of up to $200,000 to help ease the short-term liquidity woes of small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank announced. The collateral-free loan is intended to help small businesses, which make up two in three of all small- and medium-sized enterprises in Singapore, especially those from hard-hit sectors such as retail and food and beverage, said UOB. The bank has approved three t...

The bank will pass all cost savings to SMEs by lowering the interest rate. OCBC Singapore is expected to disburse $698m (S$1b) in government-assisted SME loans by 30 June under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s low-cost SGD Facility. The loan amount projected for the three months from April to June will exceed the total government-assisted loans disbursed to the same customer segment during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Almost 1,000 SMEs have asked for deferment of principal payments on unsecured and secured loans, OCBC said. The bank will pa...

ATM cash withdrawals are expected to fall by 5.5% during the year. The number of card payments in Japan will grow by 2.6% in 2020, according to forecasts by data and analytics firm GlobalData. At the same time, ATM cash withdrawals in the country are sighted to shrink by 5.5% over the year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic is expected to push digital payments transaction value and volume among consumers and merchants as they shift away from cash payments to avoid exposure to disease vectors such as cash and POS terminals, noted GlobalData in a re...

SINGAPORE - Citi Singapore will offer all summer interns full-time analyst roles when they graduate as long as they meet certain minimum requirements, the bank said on Wednesday (April 22). The initiative, which is aimed at supporting fresh graduates during the pandemic, will benefit 76 interns. Around 80 per cent are in their penultimate year at local institutes, including the Nanyang Technological University, the National University of Singapore (NUS), the Singapore Management University and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. The rest ar...

LONDON/HONG KONG (REUTERS) - HSBC has cut a number of top management roles in its investment bank, memos seen by Reuters showed, a sign that chief executive Noel Quinn is pressing on with plans to shake up the group despite having put a wider job cut programme on hold. CEO Quinn last month announced a temporary halt to plans for 35,000 redundancies across the bank because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Quinn, who took on the permanent CEO role in March after a lengthy audition process during which Chairman Mark Tucker courted several external can...