Bamboo Innovator

Japan’s mega-banks struggling to shut out mobsters amid ‘anti-social’ loans scandal

Mega-banks struggling to shut out mobsters amid ‘anti-social’ loans scandal

JIJI

NOV 16, 2013

The nation’s three mega-banks are still struggling to shut out yakuza and other “anti-social” groups, sources in the industry say. The issue entered the spotlight after the Financial Services Agency in September scolded Mizuho Bank for failing to halt lending to mobsters via consumer lending unit Orient Corp. What started as a local scandal involving so-called tie-up loans has now developed into an industrywide problem encompassing loans extended directly by the mega-banks themselves. Read more of this post

Japan’s Mammoth Pension Fund Set to Evolve; Recommended Changes Could Be Sea Change in the Way Japanese Retirement Money Is Invested

Japan’s Mammoth Pension Fund Set to Evolve

Recommended Changes Could Be Sea Change in the Way Japanese Retirement Money Is Invested

ELEANOR WARNOCK

Nov. 15, 2013 8:45 p.m. ET

Japan’s $1.2 trillion public-pension fund should be remade as a new, independent entity, a panel tasked with proposing an overhaul of the fund will likely recommend—in a step that could presage a sea change in the way trillions of yen in Japanese retirement money is invested. Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s biggest pool of pension money, is under the control of the health ministry, resulting in an ultraconservative investment menu of stocks and bonds. The fund is also bound by strict rules that have limited direct investment to Japanese government bonds, which are currently the lowest-yielding sovereign debt in the world. Read more of this post

Who Pays When India’s Billionaires Don’t Go Bust?

Who Pays When India’s Billionaires Don’t Go Bust?

Last month, the business empire of Eike Batista, once the world’s seventh-richest man and a mascot of economically resurgent Brazil, collapsed. The disaster ought to focus our minds on the perils of credit-fueled economic growth and highly leveraged corporations not just in Brazil but also in other BRICS countries. Batista secured extraordinary loans and investments from a government bank against the promise of high productivity from his oil fields; he used taxpayers’ money to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself, with such plutocratic accessories as fast cars, yachts and a wife who was a former Playboy model. His debt-fueled engine spluttered to a stop when his fields were exposed as dry and his flagship oil company, OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, was left with no cash to service debts amounting to more than $5 billion. Read more of this post

Kotak Adds Bank Network to Trump Ambani to DBS: Corporate India

Kotak Adds Bank Network to Trump Ambani to DBS: Corporate India

Billionaire Uday Kotak’s bank plans to double its branch network in the next three years to head off new competitors for India’s $1.2 trillion of bank deposits. Mumbai-based Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. (KMB), which has the nation’s highest net interest margins, will open 500 new branches at locations including small towns and villages to shelter itself from the local subsidiaries of foreign banks and new domestic rivals, Chief Financial Officer Jaimin Mukund Bhatt said in a Nov. 12 interview. Read more of this post

India missed the bus; need firm leadership: Vikram Limaye; the MD and CEO of IDFC feels quite disappointed with the way things have progressed in the country after his shift in 2005

India missed the bus; need firm leadership: Vikram Limaye

Vikram Limaye quit his Wall Street job because he wanted to work in the Indian government and didn’t mind the monetary loss because ‘there is more to life than money’. However, today the managing director and CEO of IDFC feels quite disappointed with the way things have progressed in the country after his shift in 2005. “We could have actually attracted all the capital that we needed to build out the country, whether it is from an infrastructure perspective, whether it is from a manufacturing perspective. We could have been in a completely different zone today,” he told CNBC-TV18. Read more of this post

How the “Alibaba of India” is teaching India to trust online shopping

How the “Alibaba of India” is teaching India to trust online shopping

By Lily Kuo @lilkuo November 16, 2013

Quartz continues its series profiling companies around the world experiencing explosive growth.

A lack of trust is holding back online shopping in India, a market some call the world’s last major frontier for e-commerce. The country is home to a quickly expanding middle class and millions of new internet users. But wariness about online shopping, poor infrastructure, and a low penetration of bank accounts have meant that online retail accounts for only 1% (paywall) of the country’s $450 billion consumer market. Read more of this post

Headwinds hamper Hong Kong’s search for a new identity

November 17, 2013 8:02 pm

Headwinds hamper Hong Kong’s search for a new identity

By Demetri Sevastopulo

One of the traditional pastimes in Hong Kong is worrying out loud about whether the Chinese territory is losing ground to Singapore as a global financial centre. But recently, Singapore has been shunted out of the conversation in favour of Shanghai, mainland China’s financial capital. Everyone from Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, to diners at local restaurants, are asking if the newly unveiled Shanghai free-trade zone will eventually eat Hong Kong’s lunch. Read more of this post

Japan’s Banks Find It Hard to Lend Easy Money; Dearth of Borrowers Illustrates Difficulty in Japan’s Program to Increase Money Supply

Japan’s Banks Find It Hard to Lend Easy Money

Dearth of Borrowers Illustrates Difficulty in Japan’s Program to Increase Money Supply

PHRED DVORAK and ELEANOR WARNOCK

Nov. 17, 2013 11:01 p.m. ET

OKAYAMA, Okayama Pref.—At Koeido Co., a 156-year-old sweets maker based in this city in southwest Japan, chairman Shuichi Takeda says he feels the country may

finally be coming out of a 20-year funk. Sales of Koeido’s sweet millet dumplings are holding up. The company is spending around 80 million yen ($800,000) to renovate two shops—a sign of how Japan’s economy is showing signs of life, lifted in part by a flood of easy money from the central bank that has boosted stocks and helped spur growth. Read more of this post

Korean online fashion brands are emerging as new forces in the shopping industry

2013-11-15 16:49

Online brands emerge as new force

By Rachel Lee
Online fashion brands are emerging as new forces in the shopping industry.  Over the last few years, quite a large number of up-and-coming clothing manufacturers have grown fast enough to compete with established brands in the market. According to industry sources, consumers have increasingly shown interest in those online clothing brands for both the quality and price. Read more of this post

Korean state firms are up for an immediate and major overhaul, starting with payrolls and CEOs

2013-11-15 16:50

Major shakeup to hit state-owned firms

By Kim Tae-jong
State firms are up for an immediate and major overhaul, starting with payrolls and CEOs, government officials said Friday. The Korea Land & Housing Corp. (KLH) is likely to be the first target as it has accrued the largest debt, currently 147.8 trillion won. The Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Gas Corp. are also saddled with heavy debts of 59.5 trillion won and 35.3 trillion won, respectively. KORAIL has the highest debt ratio of 500 percent. Read more of this post

S Koreans fight against tuition tide

S Koreans fight against tuition tide

In the second instalment of a two-part special report, TODAY looks at South Korea’s efforts to regulate its multi-billion-dollar tuition industry. After a ban on tuition in 1980 failed spectacularly, the Korean government has adopted a more sophisticated approach: Since 2004, it has ordered schools to hold after-school classes and offer free online lessons, as well as imposed a 10pm curfew on the operating hours of tuition centres.

BY NG JING YNG –

9 HOURS 26 MIN AGO

In the second instalment of a two-part special report, TODAY looks at South Korea’s efforts to regulate its multi-billion-dollar tuition industry. After a ban on tuition in 1980 failed spectacularly, the Korean government has adopted a more sophisticated approach: Since 2004, it has ordered schools to hold after-school classes and offer free online lessons, as well as imposed a 10pm curfew on the operating hours of tuition centres. Apart from government efforts, individuals and organisations have also come forward to fight against the tuition craze and advocate for better education policies as a long-term solution. Slowly but surely, the tide is changing — and Singapore could take a leaf out of South Korea’s experience as it seeks to put a lid on the demand for tuition. Read more of this post

Critics question Vietnam US$757mil road project, World Bank

Updated: Friday November 15, 2013 MYT 11:58:20 AM

Critics question Vietnam US$757mil road project, World Bank

HANOI: For a firm short on capital with a background in textiles, property and bottling water, Bitexco   wasn’t the obvious choice to build a $757 million highway backed by the World Bank in Vietnam’s first-ever public-private partnership. There was no tender or bidding for the project, even though the communist government had committed to a level playing field in public-private projects. Investors say the no-bid contract – and the World Bank’s support for it – has set a bad precedent for a country trying to shake off a reputation for entrenched graft, bureaucracy and vested interests. Read more of this post

Thailand’s Italian-Thai Development Company (ITD) will cease their operation on November 20 at the Dawei Special Economic Zone (DSEZ); Dawei seizure claim stuns ITD

Italian-Thai company to quit Dawei Special Economic Zone

Published on Sunday, 17 November 2013 17:43

The Italian-Thai Development Company (ITD) will cease their operation on November 20 at the Dawei Special Economic Zone (DSEZ) in Tanintharyi Region, southern Myanmar, according to local sources.

The company is facing financial difficulties for the project which started in 2008 and failed to carry out the project within the required time frame. Myanmar and Thailand governments had tried to intervene to keep the project alive. Though early reports said both governments would invite investments from international companies. But the plan never materialised and the local stakeholders are calling it “a waiting game.” Read more of this post