Latest news with #financialcapital
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Mumbai Facelift Is Inspired by 200-Year-Old New York Blueprint
Markets Citylab Indian officials are spending billions to revamp the country's financial capital and subpar infrastructure. Mumbai doesn't necessarily look the part of a major financial capital. India's seaside metropolis is riddled with torn-up roads. Monsoon flooding inundates areas near the stock exchanges and transforms even the ritziest neighborhoods into lakes. And traffic is so extreme that Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person, sometimes commutes to work on a helicopter, dodging half-finished skyscrapers and a mishmash of construction projects.
South China Morning Post
08-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why Hong Kong's stablecoin law is a smart financial move
Hong Kong's stablecoin bill passed with little fanfare recently. Yet across Asia's financial centres, the legislation has focused minds. The city has quietly created the region's first mandatory licensing regime for digital currencies, a strategic gambit to retain its position as Asia's financial capital. The new law, overseen by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), applies to any stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar or issued locally. It requires one-to-one reserve backing, a minimum capital of HK$25 million (US$3.19 million) and quarterly audits. More ambitiously, it grants Hong Kong authority over any foreign stablecoin promoted, marketed or made available to the public in Hong Kong, a direct challenge to regulatory arbitrage elsewhere. While competitors hedge their regulatory bets, Hong Kong has made a different wager: that institutional investors value clarity and transparency over tax incentives and regulatory arbitrage. In doing so, Hong Kong has pulled ahead. Singapore introduced a voluntary framework in 2023, allowing unlicensed operation if issuers avoid public marketing (and comply with existing regulation). The United Arab Emirates still restricts stablecoin and only recently began implementing comprehensive rules. Hong Kong's approach is mandatory, detailed and already operational through a pilot sandbox The ordinance plugs into the broader digital infrastructure the city has quietly built to reassert its financial supremacy. The Securities and Futures Commission now licenses virtual-asset platforms. Asia's first spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are listed in Hong Kong.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sidheshwar Shirsath, centre, sits with his wife, Manisha, and their son, Soham, 6, as they examine gold jewelry in their Mumbai home. Shirsath, who works as a driver, began buying the jewelry nine years ago as a solid investment for his family's future. In recent months, the price of gold has skyrocketed.
Sidheshwar Shirsath, who lives in the suburbs of India's financial capital, Mumbai, first started buying gold when he got married nine years ago. Shirsath, 35, works as a driver and earns about 55,000 rupees ($889 Cdn) a month. He decided that gold might be a good way to build a nest egg for his family's future. Whenever he had some cash to spend, he purchased gold jewelry, including rings and bangles, and he now has about 130 grams of gold, worth more than one million rupees ($16,000 Cdn). "Sometime after I first bought gold, the rates started increasing, so my interest in investing in it also grew," Shirsath said. In recent months — to his delight — the price has skyrocketed. Gold globally was trading at $3,298 US an ounce on Friday morning, up more than 25 per cent since the start of the year, and up 42 per cent compared with a year ago. Gold's value globally has surged amid global economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, including concerns about the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy. The precious metal is often seen as a "safe haven" asset that investors flock to during periods of economic turbulence. In India, the price has risen even more sharply and is up 30 per cent since the beginning of the year — with the additional increase driven by the rupee's depreciation against the American dollar. But for many Indians, like Shirsath, gold is more than an investment. "Gold is very close to Indian women," he said, his wife, Manisha, sitting next to him in their modest home, adorned with a heavy gold choker and gleaming bangles. "They need gold — especially for festivals and weddings." In India, gold is primarily purchased it in the form of jewelry because it can be a way of showing off one's wealth and status. The precious metal also holds enormous religious and cultural significance. It is part of the dowry in weddings, for example, and it is considered to be auspicious to buy gold during certain Hindu festivals. "India is a very unique market for gold ," said Sachin Jain, regional CEO, India, for the World Gold Council, a global industry association. "Gold is a part of the social fabric, and you don't need to be in any particular economic strata to consume gold. "We all in India have a family doctor, so to say, and we have a family jeweller." In rural India, where most of the country's 1.4 billion people still live — and with many not having easy access to bank accounts — gold is a popular way of storing savings, Jain said. All of this means that India is one of the world's largest consumers of gold, with the country's demand for the precious metal hitting about 800 tonnes a year. The steep price, however, is having an impact on the quantity of the metal that people are buying. "With jewelry consumption, whenever the price of gold goes up, the consumer waits and watches," Jain said. "The moment it gets a bit settled, we see consumers come back." The World Gold Council's data shows that demand for gold in India in the first three months of this year stood at 118.1 tonnes, down by 15 per cent compared with the first quarter of last year. But because the price is up, the value of the country's gold demand — which is the quantity of gold that is bought or invested — in the first quarter of this year actually rose by 22 per cent, to reach 940 billion rupees ($15.1 billion Cdn). "People are buying lower quantities," said Colin Shah, managing director of Kama Jewelry, a Mumbai-based manufacturer. "They all have budgets. If someone has $2,000 to spend, they'll spend that and buy a lower volume." But, he said, that gold has by no means lost its shine, despite its high price. "In India, there is a culture of gold, and nobody is going to stop buying gold because of pricing," Shah said. "Actually, they'll have more confidence in the category due to the return they are making on their money." With Indians' appetite to own gold showing no signs of easing, the government in recent years has taken a series of steps to try to ensure that gold is brought into the formal economy. These include lowering the import duty on gold last year to six per cent from 15 per cent, partly as a way of making it less attractive for people to smuggle gold into the country to avoid paying high taxes. The government also offers sovereign gold bonds as an alternative to physical gold. The World Gold Council's Jain said that Indians are increasingly investing in gold digitally, for example, through exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — and the price surge has only encouraged people to look at these options. "The young generation is getting more and more savvy, and with the ease of technology, we believe that investment into gold and gold assets is going to get a little more digital," he said. Gold investment demand, including ETFs, rose by seven per cent in India to 46.7 tonnes in the first quarter, according to the World Gold Council. JPMorgan forecasts that the price of gold could hit $4,000 US an ounce next year. Shirsath said that he and his family have more than enough jewelry now, but he still wants to keep buying gold. "My next plan is to buy gold coins or go for bonds." WATCH | Big box stores offer gold to customers as its popularity heats up: Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Irish Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Irish property investment levels rose in 2024 from low level
Flows of financial capital into the Irish property market improved somewhat last year, but investment in the private rented sector was little changed, according to a new report from Sherry Fitzgerald . Overall, capital flows into the market here increased by 13 per cent to €28.7 billion in 2024, after a 6 per cent decline in 2023 from more than €27 billion in 2022, the property agent said on Tuesday. The residential property market accounted for 84 per cent of total capital inflows last year, Sherry Fitzgerald said, or €24.2 billion, up 6 per cent. Household purchases accounted for €19.7 billion of the total. Across different segments of the commercial property market, however, 2024 was a mixed year. READ MORE Total capital flows into commercial property – including all commercial transactions, development land sales valued at €1 million or greater – were up 75 per cent to €4.5 billion, albeit from a very low base in 2023 when investment fell to the lowest level in a decade amid soaring borrowing costs. The headline figure was buoyed by a positive year for the hotels sector, where capital inflows reached record levels of €939 million, Sherry Fitzgerald said. Several high-profile properties changed last year, including the Dean Hotels group and the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. However, excluding the private rented sector, student accommodation and hotels, direct commercial investment increased by 39 per cent to €2 billion, Sherry Fitzgerald said. This was around 35 per cent below the long-term average of €2.7 billion, a spokeswoman for the property agent said. Investment in the private rented sector stood at €246 million for the year, the weakest level since 2017, according to the report. Dublin's moribund office market, in which few deals have been completed since 2022, has dragged significantly on headline commercial property investment levels in recent years. While take-up of office space has improved in the early part of 2025, it remains well below the long-term average, according to separate industry reports published in recent months. Brian Carey, commercial director at Sherry Fitzgerald, said the market in the Republic is 'poised for investment amid 'signs of recovery in the office market'. Jean Behan, senior economist and head of research at the property agency, said there was 'significant improvement' in capital flows into the Irish property market last year. 'The outlook for the year ahead is more uncertain, however, as tariffs and future policy changes by the Trump administration weigh heavily on business and investor decisions,' she said. 'That said, borrowing costs are anticipated to ease further in 2025, while the Irish economy is expected to remain resilient.'
