The Knowledge to Decide

The ASEAN nations collectively – if considered a nation – would be the seventh largest economy in the world. Their combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about USD2.4 trillion (as of 2015). ASEAN has a consumer base of more than 600 million, an expanding labor force and a rising Ecommerce industry. There is a growing need to streamline industrial inventories and develop an efficient logistics industry to aid increasingly complex supply chains. Will ASEAN’s logistics industry rise to the challenge? The growing wealth of ASEAN economies With rising costs in China, creeping political turbulence around the world and slower global growth, ASEAN is being seen as a haven of tranquillity by investors. ASEAN’s business sphere is not mature, dominated as it is by small and medium-sized enterprises. But the abundance of natural resources and cost-effective skilled labor has lured many companies to carry out manufacturing processes in this region. For instance, Thailand and Indon

The Fintech or financial technology industry is booming. Banks, insurance companies, telecommunications carriers and financial corporates are being urged to embrace the digital wave. There has been a 60 per cent rise in global Fintech investment in 2015, valued at USD20 billion1. As financial services go digital, will cash become obsolete? What is Fintech? Fintech is, simply put, the use of technology to enhance financial services and make it more accessible as well as efficient. From asset management and lending services to ledgers and payments, Fintech is transforming the financial services realm rapidly. Fintech is providing all these services at a lower cost, threatening to disrupt large financial institutions. Since 2008, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) exposed loopholes in the financial system and was a wake-up call to service providers. Moreover, it opened an opportunity for better, innovative finance models and banking services. For instance, in April 2016