A whitepaper just released by Honghu Best Global Family Office and The Asian Banker, "Global Family Office and Wealth Management Best Practices 2021 - Global Perspectives, Chinese Flair" reveals that succession planning is critical to intergenerational wealth transfer. However, most families do not prepare or plan for a smooth transition, leading to the partial or even full loss of wealth or family values that need to be passed on.

The Chinese government has proposed establishing a joint venture with local technology companies to oversee the collection of data from Chinese consumers.

The rapid transformation of domestic and cross-border payments brings new opportunities and challenges for financial institutions.Amid shrinking payment margins, players are rethinking their business models to better monetise data insights and integrate financing options such as “buy now, pay later” (BNPL). Industry experts share their views on the impact of this changing landscape, emerging value propositions, and key technology enablers for future growth

Tech giants, which make up some of the world’s largest companies, are muscling into traditional banking spaces. But whether they want to crush the traditional finance players or enable them, they are learning across the globe that disrupting well-regulated banking systems is easier said than done

The inaugural BankQuality™ Consumer Survey and Rankings interviewed 11,000 bank customers in 11 markets across the Asia Pacific region on their engagement, experience and satisfaction with their main retail banks.

Long a bastion of personalised service by relationship managers, the wealth management sector is undergoing a transformation as clients demand better service and as digital delivery enables new models. Wealth management firms need to combine “high-tech” with “high-touch” to stay ahead.

The Asia Pacific banking sector will benefit from the improving global and regional economic conditions in 2018. Overall, better asset quality is expected, and banks will maintain relatively stable profitability and capitalisation. Nevertheless, there are growing concerns over the potential asset price corrections, high private debt, and geopolitical risks.

As data analytics becomes nearly ubiquitous in most parts of consumers’ digital lives, leading banks are providing digitised solutions that deliver the right offer at the right time, predict fraud so they can reduce risk, and boost cross-sell rates.

Competition is forcing banks to improve the digital experience of their customers. Banks are focused on investing in mobile technologies, data analytics, security and cloud computing.

Vietnam’s banking sector has taken significant steps to comply with Basel II requirements. However, more measures are needed to create an effective and integrated risk management framework in the banks.

As the search for efficiency intensifies amid a slowdown in economic growth, banks continue to leverage technology to relieve cost pressures and provide increasingly complex working capital solutions that their clients demand.

Despite considerable variations within the Middle East and Africa, the banking sector as a whole achieved good financial performance in 2014

Central banks worldwide increasingly recognise the benefits of wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) in making remittances and other cross-border transactions cheaper, faster and safer. Pilot projects set in motion seek to identify opportunities and risks as well as explore the possibility of having shared infrastructure to automate cross-border payments, foreign exchange and settlements.

Growing transaction volumes are pushing Indian banks to rethink technology architecture to integrate cloud and data capabilities to meet growing transaction volumes. Indian fintechs and digital players see consumer growth, but also increased expectations and competition.

By combing various technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, and internet of things, edge computing is a viable solution to issues such as data latency, waste of bandwidth and possible security breaches.

The Asian Banker’s survey across financial institutions (FIs) in seven countries in Asia reveals emerging trends in cybersecurity risks and fraud, pressing challenges and technology areas prioritised.

Exponential leaps in artificial intelligence and its rising adoption in the financial services industry mean that some risks need to be assessed and managed along the way

Banks have implemented chatbots for operational efficiency and improved customer access, but new AI capabilities expose key gaps in contextual and cognitive capabilities of current bots

Financial institutions are accelerating the use of artificial intelligence, but they need to address key data challenges in scaling capabilities to develop the right technology framework, while also adhering to compliance requirements

Investors’ risk appetite and fondness for fintechs have cooled, leading to a 42% drop in global funding and 57% drop in APAC funding in the first half of this year

Despite economic headwinds, banks leveraged advanced technologies and a customer-centric approaches to drive balanced growth, with customer engagement, financial inclusion, and ecosystem development emerging as key strategies

According to a TABInsights survey on technology investment, FI in APAC prioritise data management, advanced analytics and digital banking capabilities

Banks and other financial institutions in China are quicker to adopt new technologies to improve core banking infrastructure, strengthen lending, and enhance compliance

The shift in global supply chains is accelerating demand for new financing programmes and solutions that aim to accelerate and improve trade digitalisation processes

Trade finance is gradually digitalising amid evolving e-commerce models, driven by technology and sustainability; the $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap affecting SMEs prompts innovation in blockchain, tokenisation, and sustainability, despite geopolitical complexities