Critical to the continued growth of the Chinese economy is the further development of the financial services industry. Once highly protected and staid, the industry has opened up significantly since China’s accession to the WTO in 2001. Foreign banks have gradually been allowed to enter the market, establish branches and offer RMB denominated services in direct competition with local banks. In parallel with this, the capital markets have developed rapidly with tremendous growth in sophistication driven by an increasing openness and access to the latest in financial technologies. Through the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) program, foreign investors have a window of access to the local A-share markets, which were formerly completely off limits to foreign investors. However even with this program, foreign investors still face numerous regulatory and technical hurdles in their access to the Chinese stock markets, and the government so tightly controls the granting of new QFII investment quota that many QFII players have had to resort to somewhat unorthodox means to be able to make their investments.

Read more...

As commonly seen as the nearest equivalent to Paypal in the Chinese market, Alipay, a Chinese online payment processor affiliated with the Alibaba Group, has enjoyed enormous popularity amongst Chinese netizens since its launch in 2004. As of December 2009, Alipay was said to possess over 250 million registered users and to oversee 5 million transactions worth ￥1.2 billion on a daily basis.

Read more...

Kapronasia is pleased to announce the general availability of the Taking Stock 2010: The Changing Face of Order Routing and Equity Trading in China Report.

Read more...

SAGE SA, publisher of Prospero, a cutting-edge front to back-office banking system, today announced that they had retained Kapronasia to help their expansion into the Greater China region.

Read more...