Regional/ International

Deutsche Bank has appointed Gunit Chadha and Alan Cloete as co chief executive officers for the Asia Pacific region. Their appointments will be effective on June 1st 2012.

RBS Group will be winding down some operations in Korea, Indonesia and Singapore. Businesses that will be shut include the cash equities, equity capital markets and corporate finance units in Korea, as well as the cash equities operations in Indonesia and Singapore.


Indochina

Vietnam’s Agribank has signed a service cooperation agreement with Thailand’s Kasikornbank which is aimed at promoting trade and investment between both countries.

Vietnam’s Dong A Bank has obtained approval to issue 50 million new shares to existing shareholders as part of a plan to raise the bank’s registered capital to 240.4 million.  

Middle East

UAE’s Doha Bank has signed an agreement with Commercial Bank of Ceylon for remittance of funds from Qatar to Sri Lanka. Doha Bank’s customers will now be able to transfer money online from their Doha account to their account with any branch of Commercial Bank of Ceylon in Sri Lanka.

Bank Nizwa, Oman’s first Islamic bank, has appointed Dr Jamil El Jaroudi as CEO, following approval from the Central Bank of Oman.

Banks in Qatar, including Doha Bank, Commercial Bank of Qatar and Al Khaliji Bank may delay or scrap plans to offer brokerage services, following a recent directive from the Qatar Central Bank that could restrict banks from offering full-service brokerage operations, limiting them to buying and selling shares but not managing portfolios or advising clients.

South Asia

United Bank of India is planning to open a representative office in Yangoon, Cambodia. The Reserve Bank of India has cleared the plan, and the bank will obtain the approval from the Central Bank of Myanmar.

State Bank of India has received the approval of its shareholders to raise about $1.57 billion via a preferential allotment of shares to the federal government.

State Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central bank, has allowed Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ to conduct derivatives business (FX options only) as a Non-Market Maker Financial Institution.  

Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, may approve a total of eight new commercial banks, including three non-resident Bangladeshi banks.
 

Australia/New Zealand

Australia's Bank of Queensland is planning to raise about $471.6 million after the bank recently posted an unexpected net loss in the first half of its financial year.

China

China Everbright Bank is planning a Hong Kong IPO.  The bank has already received initial approval from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Bank of Beijing may partner with Spain's Banco Santander, to develop its consumer financing business. Santander's consumer financing unit plans to buy a 20% stake worth $48.51 million in Bank of Beijing's consumer financing subsidiary.

Standard Chartered, UBS and Citic Capital are in discussions to invest in China’s Cinda Asset Management, a company created to clean up debt in China’s banking system. This would help Cinda file for a stock market listing.  

Bank of China has launched a Shanghai-based trading headquarters that will oversee the bank's renminbi asset trading business. The bank will also launch its first Polish branch this year.

Hong Kong

China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s securities regulator, has approved a joint venture between Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Bank and China’s Guangzhou Securities. The new company will be the first of its kind under the Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership arrangement with mainland China.

Hang Seng Bank’s Chinese subsidiary has obtained China Banking Regulatory Commission’s approval to open five additional sub-branches in China this year.

Di Weiping, CEO of China Development Bank’s Hong Kong branch, has retired.  He will be replaced by Liu Hao, the bank's deputy head of international department.
 

Indonesia

Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, has disallowed individuals from purchasing foreign currency above $100,000 a month if the funds are deposited in banks. The move is to curb speculation against the rupiah.

Bank Indonesia and the country’s Ministry of Finance have set a new regulation that requires bank customers to place a downpayment of 30% for mortgages, 25% for motorcycles, 30% for private cars and 20% for commercial cars.
 

Japan

Japanese banks welcomed the news that the United States has decided to exempt Japan and 10 European countries from its new financial sanctions against Iran over the latter's suspected nuclear weapons development program.

Development Bank of Japan will be buying part of Sony’s chemical and device subsidiary that makes films and adhesives used in televisions, cameras and mobile phones, for 30 to 40 billion yen ($360-480 million).

Nomura Holdings faced questions about its internal controls as the leaking of insider information by an employee highlighted a breakdown in the firewall supposed to divide banking and sales operations.

Japan's largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, which just bought a midsized lender in the U.S. for $1.5 billion, is still on the hunt for even bigger acquisitions.

Korea, South

Royal Bank of Scotland Group will shut some operations in South Korea, after failing to find a buyer for the business.

Employees of the Korea Exchange Bank have said that they want their new CEO Yun Yong-ro to keep the bank as a separate entity from Hana Financial Group, its new major shareholder.

The Export-Import Bank of Korea has joined the Inter-American Development Bank’s Trade Finance Facilitation Programme. Under the TFFP, the IDB offers trade finance co-lending facilities and guarantees to support participating banks to further their trade-finance business and promote economic growth.

Malaysia

Maybank anticipates its newly inked remittance services with four partners in Myanmar to see some 38 million ringgit ($12.3 million) in transfers this year, and help fuel the 20% growth in foreign worker remittance value targeted for 2012.

The Philippines

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has enhanced the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework recently by changing provisions to minimize delays in restoring banks’ capital health and overall viability, and more standard rules are being revised to make PCA more effective.

The Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation is taking a 100% stake in the affiliate leasing company First Malayan Leasing & Finance Corporation and infusing P163.2 million ($3.8 million) in fresh capital into the latter.

Singapore

Deutsche Bank’s head of corporate and investment banking in the Asia Pacific region, Loh Boon Chye, is leaving the bank, but will continue to chair a working group to manage the firm’s leadership transition in the region for two months.

The Singapore Exchange is introducing dual currency trading of securities, and investors will be able to trade stocks, bonds and other listed investments in two different denominations; the Singapore dollar and U.S. dollar. They can also take the profit or loss from transactions in their currency of choice.

Taiwan

Fubon Financial will expand its local network by acquiring a bank, putting the spotlight on the Carlyle Group-controlled Ta Chong Bank, which will enable it to increase its branches to 200, a rise of 74.

Cathay Financial plans to raise up to NT$40 billion ($1.35 billion) via new share sales for future business expansion, likely to allow a Chinese counterpart to take a stake in Cathay Financial to expnd its business presence in China.

China UnionPay and Taishin International Bank have jointly declared that the emergent cash support service of the China UnionPay has been offered in Taiwan province, allowing UnionPay card holders to get emergent cash support at the service department of the Taishin International Bank.

Thailand

Thanachart Bank, backed by Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia, is preparing to sell its insurance operations in a deal could fetch about $500 million, and would likely include a bancassurance deal.

State-owned Krung Thai Bank has denied that it has proposed a capital-raising plan to its major shareholder following local tabloid Kaohoon reporting that the bank was seeking a recapitalization plan to boost its capital adequacy ratio.