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Asia Financial Services

Covering all aspects of financial services in Asia from banking in China to algo trading in Japan.

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Of Bitcoin ATMs and regulation in Asia

Over the past week, Robocoin Technologies announced they were expanding their Bitcoin ATM offering into Asia with planned ATM installs in Taiwan and Hong Kong. If you're not familiar with the Bitcoin ATM offering from Robocoin, it is one of the first Bitcoin ATM/Kiosks in the world and is 'cash-only' insofar that it is not connected into a bank net...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Chinese can now buy real estate with Bitcoin

Bitcoin acceptance in China has now extended into real estate with a residential developer in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech park in Shanghai finding a new way to promote sales through the acceptance of Bitcoin virtual currency. Shanda Group, one of the large IT giants in China, through its real estate development arm, opened sales of its first real estate inv...

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Retired Member 

China Bitcoin payments developing gradually

In our previous commentary, we looked at the future of Bitcoin in China and its potential to become a widely adopted and used virtual currency. One aspect of its development which will be critical if the fledgling currency is to really gain traction is the maturation of Bitcoin as a transaction platform. *** NB: As you likely have heard, The Silk ...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Will Bitcoin take off in China?

In February 2013, China became the second largest active Bitcoin market globally as measured by wallet downloads. This has attracted new Bitcoin based businesses to China and what could be a massive market for the developing virtual currency. An example is Bitfash, which was launched in April 2013 and became the first online shopping platform for ...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

The temperature is rising in Asia

So having spent three of the last four weeks in Shanghai, it was time for me to move on over the weekend. Following a 4 ½ hour flight, my flight touched down at Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 2, and at 7pm as the plane coasted to a halt the captain proudly announced the outside temperature was 86 degrees. This was nothing to the temperature...

/retail

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Retired Member 

Prepaid card recycling in China

One of the most interesting parts of doing market research in China is learning about the innovative ways of doing business. A few weekends ago the fracas over the China launch of the iPhone 4S at the Apple store in Beijing got me thinking. If you haven’t followed the story, basically, the store was meant to open in the morning and people had queu...

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Retired Member 

The Changing Face of Chinese Retail Banking

Anyone who has lived long enough has their own China banking story. Mine was when I first arrived many years ago. My landlord banked with Bank of China (BOC) and I banked with the Industrial Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). At that time (2004), personal bank to bank transfers weren’t possible without a tremendous amount of paperwork, so once per m...

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Retired Member 

What an MOU actually means in China's FSI

Frequently companies issue press releases talking about a new agreement or MOU with a Chinese financial institution or market player. As Chinese companies globalize and more foreign companies setup offices in China, announcements like these are becoming more common, it is worth taking a minute to reflect on what MOUs or agreements actually mean bo...

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Retired Member 

It's what foreign banks are doing outside China that matters

Recently there seems to have been an increased focus on the presence of foreign banks in China and their domestic China businesses. There was an article in the WSJ last week that mentioned the number 86% which represents the increase in foreign banks' lending in China in 2010. A webinar from Celent talks about how JVs/partnerships are still the wa...

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Lucky Chinese Rabbits

China, for once, is relatively quiet – well in certain respects. Today, we’re nearly mid-way through the two week celebration of Chinese New Year as we move into the year of the rabbit. The streets for the past week have been somewhat quiet and offices were closed as millions of Chinese returned to their hometowns to celebrate the lunar calendar

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