All posts tagged funds

Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tightens Controls Over Sales Of ILAS Products

Hong Kong regulators have tightened regulatory controls over the sale of Investment-Linked Assurance Schemes (ILAS) by imposing further requirements including commission disclosure, Key Facts Statement and customer’s declaration, as well as post-sale controls. These new requirements are aimed at enhancing customers’ understanding of the risks and features of ILAS in an attempt to better protect customers.

ILAS – the Good and the Bad

ILAS products are life insurance policies with an investment component. As the policyholder, the premiums paid are used by the insurer to invest in a number of different funds. The value of the insurance policy (including Death Benefit) is linked to the performance of the underlying funds and may fluctuate depending on market conditions. The attraction of such products is that they give customers access to a wide range of funds, as well as the flexibility of switching funds without incurring charges of the fund houses. However, the policyholder has no rights or ownership over the underlying funds and his only recourse is against the insurer.

Brummer Prefers Private-Equity Bets Over Stocks: Southeast Asia

Brummer & Partners, the largest Scandinavian hedge-fund manager, will favor private companies rather than listed stocks to avoid volatility as it sets aside $120 million to tap growth in the Philippines.

“It is a better way to participate in the long-term growth of a country to be on the private side,” Patrik Brummer, founder of the Stockholm-based firm, said in an interview inManila yesterday. “Public markets are more volatile than private markets.”

The fund, which manages about $15 billion, is working with local partners Honorio Poblador and Javier Infante, he said. The private-equity fund, called Navegar, will over five years invest in eight to 10 companies that should generate returns of at least 20 percent each, Brummer said.

IMF: Risks to India’s Financial System Appear Manageable

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Sudeep Jain, MUMBAI–India‘s banks are facing a deterioration in their asset quality and higher liquidity pressures, but the risks to the stability of the financial system appear manageable, the International Monetary Fund said.

“The combination of a sharp credit expansion and a more recent economic slowdown is putting pressure on banks’ asset quality, especially for infrastructure and priority-sector lending,” the IMF said Tuesday in its Financial System Stability Assessment Update on India.

Indian banks expanded loans at a rapid pace before the financial crisis of 2008-09, when the economy was growing at close to double-digit rates. While the economy bounced back after the crisis, growth has once again slowed in recent quarters to its lowest in nearly a decade. This has affected customers’ ability to repay loans.

Priority-sector lending refers to the central bank’s rules requiring banks to apportion a certain percentage of their loans to sectors of the economy which, without regulation, may not get adequate access to funds. These include small-value loans to farmers, micro and small enterprises as well as for housing for the poor and for education

The Asian Century Report

All posts tagged funds

Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tightens Controls Over Sales Of ILAS Products

ILAS – the Good and the Bad

Brummer Prefers Private-Equity Bets Over Stocks: Southeast Asia

IMF: Risks to India’s Financial System Appear Manageable

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