Financial Industry Research Reports

Kapronasia was in Shanghai for the Hopkins China Forum event in May 2015. Zennon Kapron presented the attached slides on the latest financial innovations in China’s financial industry and how they are disrupting the sector.

Not only is Singapore the geographical center of the incredibly diverse and large Asia Pacific region, it also is one of the key financial centers. The city-state of Singapore offers a diverse array of financial asset classes and trading instruments with a high degree of liquidity and market efficiency. With this in mind, the Equinix-sponsored Trading in Singapore report takes a detailed look at the available trading options and related trends, regulation and technology.

Hong Kong is one of the largest financial centers in the world. Benefiting from relatively loose regulations, yet strong geographic ties with mainland China, Hong Kong’s capital markets offer diverse financial asset classes and instruments for trading purposes with a high degree of liquidity and market efficiency, as well as transparent regulations. In addition, markets are supported by the HK government, which works to keep market intervention and taxation to a minimum to maintain market competitiveness. This report from Kapronasia sponsored by Equinix provides a comprehensive view of the Hong Kong market across several topics.

Japan has long been famous for its technology innovation and business excellence. However, the country has been somewhat conservative in developing its financial services industry. Still, with recent regulatory reforms and market structure updates, the country has a lot to offer traders looking to expand in the Asia-Pacific region.

From foreign banks being allowed to enter China in the early 2000s to the launch of stock options and crude oil futures in 2015, the government has pushed the financial industry through a consistent and pragmatic path of reform. The culmination of this has been the Hong Kong Shanghai connect, or Mutual Market Access program, which is seen by many as the final step before the government fully opens capital markets by allowing nearly open capital markets.

The Australian market is in a unique position as it is closely tied to both the more developed Western capital markets and the growing Asian markets. Although Australia’s capital markets do not receive the attention of some of the other Asian markets, a sound legal system, liquidity, increased competition and a variety of products and asset classes will continue to make the Australian markets an attractive place for future investment.

Internationalization of China’s financial sector has been a key industry trend for a number of years. This year, that trend is more pronounced than ever. Chinese finance is more connected to the global economy than ever before, with new reforms, partnerships and investments. Looking forward, what changes can we expect in China’s financial sector? Will the trends established in 2014 continue? Will the speed of reform slow down?

The first private bank went live in January 2015, with the rest soon to follow. NFC continues its growth in both awareness and acceptance for mobile payments. China UnionPay quietly becomes a truly global player both in online and offline. What else will 2015 hold for banking in China?

To help our clients understand the current situation and try to make sense of what could be in the future of digital currencies in Asia, we expand our Top-10 report series to include this report covering the 2015 Top-10 Trends in Asia Digital Currency.

Kapronasia was in Singapore for INSEAD Alumni Association event in February 2015 and Zennon Kapron presented the attached slides on latest financial innovations in China’s financial industry and how they are disrupting the sector.

Based on a series of interviews with Heads of Transactional Banking in Asian Banks, we take a look at some of the current trends and issues in the industry.

As China’s financial industry continues on a path of continuous reform and change that started over 30 years ago, the pace of change has anything but slowed in the past few years. From private banks to the rise of mobile payments, the changes are impressive. However, no conversation on change in the industry would be complete without a discussion of Peer to Peer (P2P) lending.

This report is one of the first public reports on the subject of Chinese moving their money abroad and is one of the most comprehensive reviews of current legal and illegal schemes employed by Chinese investors for allocating their funds abroad.

Kapronasia was in Singapore for Buy Side Technology Asia Summit in June 2014 and Zennon Kapron presented the attached slides on the latest trends and issues in Asia's buy-side cloud technology.

The ATM market in China has maintained strong growth in the last ten years with the deployed number of ATMs peaking at 520,000 units in 2013, surpassing the number of ATMs deployed in the US and making China the largest ATM market in the world. With an average annual growth rate of 20%, China will continue to have sizable growth in 2014 as China’s number of ATMs installed per million people lags significantly behind developed countries and the number of payment cards served by a single ATM is also far less than the international standard.