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artnet AG: Artnet News Launches Artnet News Pro, Bringing Data-Driven Reporting to Industry Insiders

  • New Members-Only Product From Artnet News Will Bring Exclusive Art Market Insights to Readers
  • Subscribers Have Access to Market-Focused, In-Depth Coverage to Help Drive Decisions About Collecting, Art Business, and More
  • Market Analysis Powered By Artnet’s Industry-Leading Price Database And Analytics
  • Paywall Will Support the Work of the Artnet News Team

BERLIN, GERMANY/NEW YORK, US – EQS Newswire – 6 May 2021 – Artnet News Pro has arrived, and with it comes a new era for the team at Artnet News. In switching to a partially paywalled model, Artnet News will continue its best-in-class coverage of the global art market while providing more targeted, industry-specific content for subscribers.

A membership to Artnet News Pro provides members with decision-driving intelligence about the latest developments in the global art market, from exclusive news and data reports to opinion from our acclaimed columnists. Non-members will still be able to read all of Artnet News’s indispensable reporting on exhibitions, museums, antiquities, viral crazes, and the places where the art world intersects with politics, pop culture, and style. But they will not gain access to Artnet News Pro‘s premium market coverage, analysis, and opinion.

In a mission statement, Artnet News Editor-in-Chief Andrew Goldstein lays out the ways the paywall will bring more value to readers. “As the boutique art business transitions into a supercharged global industry, the art market faces both unprecedented challenges and unprecedented opportunities,” Goldstein wrote. “We are launching Artnet News Pro to provide collectors, art professionals, and other ambitious art lovers with the tools to navigate this high-stakes terrain through exclusive market news, analysis, opinion, insights from industry insiders, and clear-eyed investigations driven by Artnet’s industry-leading price database.”

A subscription includes unlimited access to premium Artnet News Pro market coverage and analysis powered by Artnet’s unparalleled Price Database; members-only art-market columns every week, including Katya Kazakina’s Art Detective, Tim Schneider’s The Gray Market, Nate Freeman’s Wet Paint, and more; a weekly members-only Artnet News Pro newsletter with original content and insights; a digital copy of the industry-leading biannual Intelligence Report magazine; and invitations to exclusive Artnet News Pro events. Memberships start at $24.50/month, while a $240 annual package offers 18% savings over a month-by-month subscription.

Learn more and sign up: https://news.artnet.com/subscribe

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Artnet

Artnet is the leading resource for buying, selling, and researching art online. Founded in 1989, Artnet’s suite of industry-leading products has revolutionized the way people discover and collect art today.

The Price Database contains more than 14 million auction results from 1,900 auction houses dating back to 1985, providing an unparalleled level of transparency to the art market. The Gallery Network platform connects leading galleries with collectors from around the world, offering the most comprehensive overview of artworks for sale. Artnet Auctions was the first dedicated online marketplace for fine art, providing a seamless and efficient collecting experience for both buyers and sellers. Artnet News covers the events, trends, and people shaping the global art market with up-to-the-minute analysis and expert commentary. Artnet AG is listed in the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the segment with the highest transparency standards.

#artnetAG

DEUTZ AG: High hopes for 2021 following a successful start to the year for DEUTZ

  • Significant new order growth; orders on hand up by around 48 percent year on year
  • Strong improvement in profitability and free cash flow
  • Further progress with implementing Transform for Growth; voluntary redundancy program taken up in full
  • Rigorous implementation of strategic growth initiatives
  • Full-year guidance for 2021 raised despite difficult supply situation

COLOGNE, GERMANY – EQS Newswire – 6 May 2021 – Having finished a year dominated by coronavirus with a much improved fourth quarter in 2020, the uptrend for DEUTZ continued into the first quarter of 2021. This could be seen from the recently published preliminary results, which the Company has confirmed today.

“The successful start to the year shows that DEUTZ is back on course for growth. Our new orders were up by around a third year on year in the first quarter of 2021, while orders on hand rose by almost a half. And although we will be dealing with the coronavirus pandemic for quite some time to come, we anticipate a sustained increase in customers’ propensity to proceed with capital expenditure in all of the main application segments,” said DEUTZ CEO Dr. Frank Hiller.

As well as a healthy operating performance, further strategic milestones were reached. In China, the world’s largest engine market, the joint venture with SANY continues to operate profitably. Its unit sales amounted to around 8,000 engines in the first quarter of this year and the aim is to increase this to between 35,000 and 40,000 engines in 2021. At the Tianjin site, DEUTZ and BEINEI have begun to manufacture the 2.9 engine series as planned. Establishment of the purchasing organization in China is also proceeding according to schedule. The intention behind this is to achieve the highest possible localization rate and thus significantly lower costs for materials and logistics.

DEUTZ also forged ahead with the ongoing expansion of its high-margin service portfolio in the reporting period. At the start of 2021, the Company added to its analog service concepts by launching a Lifetime Parts Warranty for engines that have been registered with DEUTZ online. Recording these engines in the internal service systems is an important step to be able to further optimize DEUTZ’s service offering and strengthen customer loyalty. Activity under the regional growth initiatives included expansion of the service network in the USA: The establishment of a new DEUTZ Power Center got under way in the Dallas metropolitan area. The ongoing expansion supports the planned increase in total revenue of the profitable service business to around €400 million by the end of 2021.

At the start of February, DEUTZ signed a long-term supply agreement with agricultural equipment manufacturer SDF. As well as the supply of engines with a capacity of below and above 4 liters, the agreement includes expansion of the service business between the two companies and is expected to result in additional annual revenue in the low-double-digit millions of euros.

DEUTZ CFO Dr. Sebastian C. Schulte reported on the progress with the efficiency program: “The restructuring measures that we have initiated are already having a noticeable positive impact. For example, the cost savings achieved enabled us to significantly improve our profitability in the reporting period. This shows that we are on the right track to be able to lower the break-even point to our target of 130,000 DEUTZ engines.” By the end of 2022, DEUTZ intends to realize potential cost savings of around €100 million gross per year, compared with the base year of 2019. Another important milestone in this context was achieved with regard to the voluntary redundancy program, which originally aimed to reduce the number of positions by 350 but had been taken up 361 employees by the time that the program ended.

New orders up sharply by around a third
On the back of market demand that was better than originally expected, new orders received by DEUTZ in the first quarter of 2021 jumped by 30.3 percent compared with the first quarter of 2020 to reach €464.8 million. All of the regions and main application segments recorded double-digit percentage increases. As at March 31, 2021, orders on hand stood at €394.3 million, which was up by a substantial 47.6 percent year on year. Within this figure, orders on hand in the high-margin service business rose by an impressive 50.0 percent to €31.8 million.

Year-on-year rise in unit sales of DEUTZ engines
The Group’s sales totaled 38,384 units in the first quarter of 2021, which was 4.2 percent fewer than in the prior-year period owing to substantial decreases in the Stationary Equipment and Miscellaneous application segments. The decrease in the Miscellaneous application segment was mainly attributable to the business with electric drives for boats at Torqeedo, whose unit sales fell by 28 percent year on year to 6,135 electric motors. The reasons for this included a decline in demand in the US recreational sector, delays in the procurement of materials, and longer logistics lead times. By contrast, the other application segments saw increases in unit sales. Unit sales of DEUTZ engines[1] rose by 2.2 percent year on year to reach 32,249 engines sold.

Revenue increased only slightly year on year due to coronavirus
Despite the fall in the Group’s unit sales, consolidated revenue went up by 1.1 percent to €343.4 million owing to the increase in the number of higher-value DEUTZ engines[1] sold in the reporting period. The application segments and regions presented a disparate picture. As a result of the ongoing lockdowns in Europe, revenue in the EMEA region was at more or less the same level as in the prior-year period, whereas the Asia-Pacific region’s revenue went up sharply thanks, in particular, to the significant expansion of business in the Construction Equipment application segment. There was a decline in the Americas that was mainly attributable to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic combined with longer transportation lead times, which had been less pronounced in the first quarter of 2020.

Strong improvement in profitability; efficiency program already paying off
EBIT before exceptional items (operating profit) improved significantly to a profit of €0.8 million in the first three months of this year (Q1 2020: loss of €11.8 million) due to the increasingly noticeable effect of cost savings resulting from the restructuring that is under way. Furthermore, the figure for the prior-year period had been burdend by payments to suppliers going through insolvency proceedings. The EBIT margin before exceptional items improved to 0.2 percent, compared with minus 3.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

As a result of the increase in operating profit, the net loss declined by €9.1 million to €0.9 million. Earnings per share therefore improved from minus €0.08 to minus €0.01. The net loss before exceptional items stood at €0.5 million and earnings per share before exceptional items at €0.00.

Clear improvement in free cash flow and comfortable financial position
Thanks to the improvement in operating profit and a favorable level of working capital, cash flow from operating activities was significantly better, amounting to a net cash inflow of €17.1 million (Q1 2020: net cash outflow of €11.9 million). As a result of this, coupled with the reduction in investing activities, free cash flow was up by a substantial €33.8 million compared with the first quarter of 2020 and amounted to a net cash outflow of €1.7 million.

Net financial debt was slightly higher than at the end of 2020, rising by €3.4 million to €87.2 million as at March 31, 2021. In view of the sound equity ratio, which – as it had been in the prior-year period – was above the target figure of 40 percent, the DEUTZ Group’s financial position remains comfortable. Moreover, the Company continues to have unutilized credit lines totaling around €245 million at its disposal.

Positive outlook for 2021 and 2023/2024
Despite the difficult supply situation, DEUTZ recently raised its full-year guidance for 2021, having made a successful start to the new year.[2] It now expects unit sales of 140,000 to 155,000 DEUTZ engines in 2021.[3] This should result in an increase in revenue to between €1.5 billion and €1.6 billion. In view of the continued successful expansion of the service business, DEUTZ still anticipates that service revenue will rise to around €400 million. In terms of the Company’s profitability, the revenue target and the realization of further potential cost savings indicate that the EBIT margin before exceptional items is likely to be in a range of 1.0 percent to 2.0 percent.

In the medium term, DEUTZ continues to predict an increase in revenue to more than €2.0 billion in 2023/2024 and an EBIT margin before exceptional items of between 7 percent and 8 percent.

DEUTZ Group: overview of key figures

€ million

Q1 2021

Q1 2020

Change

New orders

464.8

356.7

30.3%

Group’s total unit sales (units)

38,384

40,069

-4.2%

thereof DEUTZ engines

32,249

31,546

2.2%

thereof Torqeedo

6,135

8,523

-28.0%

Revenue

343.4

339.8

1.1%

EBIT

0.4

-11.8

thereof exceptional items

-0.4

0.0

Operating profit/loss
(EBIT before exceptional items)

0.8

-11.8

EBIT margin (%)

0.1

-3.5

+3.6pp

EBIT margin before exceptional items (%)

0.2

-3.5

+3.7pp

Net income

-0.9

-10.0

91.0%

Net income before exceptional items

-0.5

-10.0

95.0%

Earnings per share (€)

-0.01

-0.08

87.5%

Earnings per share before exceptional items (€)

0.00

-0.08

Equity

538.2

642.0

-16.2%

Equity ratio (%)

44.3

50.4

-6.1pp

Cash flow from operating activities

17.1

-11.9

Free cash flow

-1.7

-35.5

95.2%

Net financial position (Mar. 31)

-87.2

-65.6

-32.9%

Employees[4] (Mar. 31)

4,548

4,815

-5.5%

The quarterly statement is available on the Company’s website at DEUTZ AG: Investor Relations.

[1] Excluding electric boat drives from DEUTZ subsidiary Torqeedo.
[2] See the ad hoc disclosure dated April 19, 2021.
[3] Excluding electric boat drives from DEUTZ subsidiary Torqeedo.
[4] FTEs, excluding temporary workers.

Over 150 new Rewards are now available on the yuu App. Redeem amazing Rewards for as little as 400 yuu Points and link your Hang Seng enJoy Card for 20% Points rebate!

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 6 May 2021 – A new selection of exclusive member Rewards from yuu, Hong Kong’s biggest Rewards Club, are coming your way! Over 150 brand-new Rewards are now up for grabs for as little as 400 Points on the yuu App covering a variety of categories including dining, grocery, beauty, household and lifestyle. Choose from a wide range of unmissable Rewards including a limited-edition 7-Eleven Container Truck for 18,000 Points plus $168 at 7-Eleven, a Chicken Bucket (9 pcs) for just 5,850 Points at KFC or a set of SKUBB storage boxes for only 2,000 Points plus $15 at IKEA.

#yuu #7ElevenHK #yuuRewards #enJoyCard #Rebate #Points

These attractive new Rewards provide such a diverse choice of items for you to redeem – there’s something for everyone! Plus, from now until 20 May, if you have linked your Hang Seng enJoy card to your yuu Account, you can get a 20% Points rebate* when you redeem any Rewards. If you haven’t already linked your enJoy Card, it just takes two simple steps. Remember, these awesome Rewards are totally exclusive for yuu Members so spread the word and redeem together with your friends and loved ones!

The latest all-new Rewards with something for everyone:

Redeem a limited-edition 7-Eleven Container Truck with 18,000 Points plus $168 at 7-Eleven! This truck is made up of 405 bricks and comes with eight brick delivery boxes and a driver character figure. This item is exclusively available to yuu Members so make sure to add it to your collection and have hours of fun!

Redeem an OLAY Camellia B3 Brightening Hydrating Mask (1 pc) with 2,580 Points at Mannings.

Redeem a Meadows Coconut Water (330ml) with 1,000 Points at Wellcome.

Redeem a bottle of Château d’Esclans Whispering Angel Rosé (750ml) with 3,000 Points plus $150 at Market Place by Jasons, Market Place, 3hreesixty, Oliver’s The Delicatessen and Jasons ichiba.

Redeem a set of white SKUBB storage boxes (6 pcs) with 2,000 points plus $15 at IKEA.

Redeem a Chicken Bucket (9 pcs) with 5,850 Points at KFC.

Redeem a Regular Chicken Supreme Pizza with 8,000 Points at Pizza Hut.

Redeem a Baked Seafood in Tuna Napolitana Spaghetti with 2,100 Points plus $10 at PHD.

Redeem a Sizzling Honey-Glazed Barbecued Pork with 12,000 Points at selected Jade Garden restaurants.

Download and open the yuu App now for more great Rewards: https://www.yuurewards.com/promotion?type=page&link=reward


Simple steps to link your Hang Seng enJoy card for more Rewards, faster!

Just log into your account in the yuu App, enter your Hang Seng enJoy Card information and click “Link now” . You’re now all set to get your 20% yuu Points rebate*!

Terms and Conditions:

1. The “Redeem for Great Rewards” promotion begins on 30 April 2021, 00:00 (GMT+8) and ends on 20 May 2021, 23:59 (GMT+8) (the “Promotion Period“).

2. Rewards are available while stocks last.

3. Please refer to the individual reward details in the yuu App for terms and conditions for redeeming yuu Rewards.

4. Terms and conditions for 20% yuu Points rebate on Rewards redemption for Hang Seng enJoy Cardholders:

a. A yuu Member is eligible to receive a 20% yuu Points rebate if: (i) he or she has linked their Hang Seng enJoy Card to their yuu Account, (ii) he or she has redeemed yuu Rewards in the yuu App during the Promotion Period, and (iii) their card remained linked when the yuu Points are rebated.

b. Points rebate is only available in respect of the Rewards listed on the Rewards and Offers sections in the yuu App.

c. Points rebate is applicable to yuu Points only. It is not applicable to any cash paid when members redeem any Rewards.

d. Points rebate will be credited to eligible yuu Accounts within 7 days after a redemption is made.

5. In case of any dispute, the decision of DFI Development (HK) Limited shall be final. Other yuu Terms & Conditions apply.

6. DFI Development (HK) Limited reserves the right to terminate this promotion or change the Terms & Conditions of this promotion without prior notice.

These Terms and Conditions are provided in English and Chinese. In case of any inconsistency between the two versions, the English version shall prevail to the extent of any such inconsistency.

Laos Considers Policy to Assist Poor Families During Covid-19 Crisis

Lao government mulls unemployment package
Lao laborers return home to Champasack Province from work in Thailand.

The government of Laos is now considering a policy to assist poor families or vulnerable individuals who have been affected by the Covid-19 crisis.

Alibaba Printing Continues To Dominate The Printing Industry With Sticker Printing Service

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 6 May 2021 – Alibaba Printing is an established marketing company in Singapore that offers the most reliable flyer printing and distribution services among other marketing services. The company is the leading flyer printing service provider that caters to every marketing needs and specific concern of the customers. Alibaba Printing offers reliable and trustworthy services with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. Even with the pandemic, the company is still able to continuously serve the customers with their online website.

Alibaba Printing provide the best when it comes to sticker printing in Singapore. They offer various types of sticker printing services such as custom stickers printing and waterproof sticker printing. Their stickers come in various types of high-quality materials such as vinyl, polyester, and polypropylene with strong adhesive that can stick to any surfaces with excellent durability.

Beside cheap sticker printing, Alibaba Printing offers instant sticker printing services to fulfil business needs and allow them to get their order as fast as they require. Stickers have multiple uses and their versatility makes it beneficial since they can be utilized on almost anything including focused promotional campaign all over multiple platforms.

Stickers can become an awesome and good means of providing information to the clients and businesses can utilize it to highlight vital details which can boost the possibility of closing a sale. The company is committed to work hand-in-hand with the clients in understanding requirement and proceed with lay-outing and designing the stickers with the most suitable colour and fonts.

If you are regularly involved in exhibitions and trade shows, your trade stickers can be an awesome add-on too. It’s as powerful as handing business cards and flyers since it allows you to send a specific message to your customer. Another list of advantages that stickers have are its ability as a call-to-action to encourage the customers to purchase the product, and a promotional tool as a way to offer discounts, vouchers codes, or even free-shipping. Stickers are affordable and easy to print, which is great for printing larger quantities compared to other marketing tools since the excess ones can be used for another campaign.

Alibaba Printing values the need of the customers and will always be the go-to solution. The company guarantee their clients that the stickers are unique, well-designed, and distinguishable from others in order to stand out in the crowd.

To know more about their services and what they do as a marketing and printing company, visit https://www.alibabaprinting.sg.

#AlibabaPrinting

CUHK Business School Research Finds FinTech Innovations Can Enhance the Stability and Profitability of Financial Institutions in Emerging Markets

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 6 May 2021 – The rapid development of financial technology, also known as FinTech, in recent years has transformed how people use financial services. On the one hand, the increasing use of automation in banking services has brought with it greater convenience for consumers. On the flip side, the advent of new technological developments such as cryptocurrency, high frequency and algorithmic trading, the rise of the digital wallet or peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, are all examples of FinTech that have brought new challenges to traditional financial service providers to some extent. Given the disruptive influence of FinTech, it was only natural that a group of researchers sought to closely examine its effects on the stability of traditional financial institutions. What they found was that the result very much depended on the market.

The stability of financial institutions usually refers to the ability of these institutions, such as banks, brokerage firms or credit unions, in performing their roles in financial transactions or other intermediation functions without assistance from external forces such as the government. The promise behind FinTech is that it would help financial institutions to enhance transparency, efficiency and make its services more convenient for users. For example, mobile banking has allowed consumers to conduct their daily financial activities, such as transferring funds or paying bills, without the need to talk to a teller or visit a bank branch.

On the downside, Fintech could amplify volatility in financial markets and make the financial system more vulnerable. For instance, the speed and ease of moving cash between banks in response to financial market performance enabled by FinTech can increase volatility. The heavy reliance on third-party service providers for the FinTech activities could also pose a systemic risk to financial institutions. Finally, online lending platforms often fail to conduct effective credit checks on borrowers, which can lead to higher default risk.

For example, China’s P2P lending industry, once the world’s biggest, has completely collapsed in just a few years. Many Chinese P2P lending platforms were plagued by fraud, defaults and even alleged Ponzi schemes, which eventually led to a government crackdown. The Deputy Governor at The People’s Bank of China Chen Yulu announced in January that it had eliminated all P2P lending platforms in the country, however more than 800 billion Chinese yuan in debt is still left unpaid, state media Xinhua News reported.

More recently, two of China’s homegrown fintech champions, Ant Group and Tencent, are coming under intense regulatory scrutiny by domestic regulators over business models that some worry will lead to a dangerous accumulation of systemic financial risk.

Ying Versus Yang

“Where there is light there must also be shadow,” says Jason Yeh, Associate Professor in the Department of Finance at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, and one of the authors of a new study. “Given the disruptive nature of technology, the rise of FinTech is bound to have an impact on traditional financial institutions. So it’s kind of fitting that we find that the bright and dark sides of FinTech seem to offset each other and the promotion of FinTech doesn’t necessarily make financial institutions more vulnerable.”

Titled Friend or Foe: The Divergent Effects of FinTech on Financial Stability, the study was co-conducted by Prof. Yeh with Profs. Derrick Fung, Wing Yan Lee and Fei Lung Yuen at The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong.

To examine the impact of the rise of FinTech on the stability of financial institutions, the researchers looked at the introduction of FinTech regulatory sandboxes. A FinTech regulatory sandbox is a way for a financial regulator to allow companies to try out new business models, products or services (under a controlled and supervised environment) that are not covered or permitted by existing legislation. The first such sandbox was introduced in the U.K. in 2016. Since then, 73 similar initiatives have been set up in 57 countries around the world, according to the World Bank.

The team sampled all listed banks worldwide that were active on the Thomson Reuters Datastream platform between 2010 and 2017. Their final sample included 1,375 banks from 84 countries. Using a common measurement of bank stability, the research team found that the introduction of sandboxes did not have a statistically significant impact on the financial stability of the institutions in the same jurisdiction.

They found that the positive and negative effects of these FinTech sandboxes on financial stability tended to offset each other after discounting for the characteristics of individual firms or markets, or macroeconomic and other bank-specific factors. In general, they also found that FinTech increases the stability of financial institutions in emerging financial markets and decreases it in developed financial markets.

Boosting Stability and Profits

Looking at specific market characteristics, the study also found that the promotion of FinTech through the setting up of regulatory financial sandboxes can at the very least enhance the stability of financial institutions if the market has low financial inclusion, with

  • A bank branch ratio of less than 11.7 per 100,000 adults;
  • A central bank assets to GDP ratio of less than 1.6 percent;
  • An industry-wide bank net interest margin of less than 2.4 percent, or
  • A provisions to nonperforming loans ratio of less than 44.2 percent.

On the other hand, the launch of financial sandboxes in markets with high financial inclusion can undermine financial stability, the study found.

Moreover, Prof. Yeh says that FinTech can also improve the stability of financial institutions by boosting profitability. According to the study, when a country has fewer bank branches than 11.4 branches per 100,000 people, a central bank assets to GDP ratio of less than 1.7 percent, bank net interest margin of less than 2.2 percent, or a provisions to nonperforming loans ratio of less than 45.6 percent, promoting FinTech by setting up regulatory sandboxes can increase the profitability of financial institutions.

But why does FinTech enhance the profitability of financial institutions in emerging financial markets? The authors speculated this may be due to three reasons. First of all, FinTech has been widely adopted in emerging financial markets and has greatly increased the profitability of the banks that invested in these FinTech start-ups. Second, the operational efficiency of the banks in emerging financial markets improved as a result of collaboration with technology companies. Third, the products provided by FinTech companies are often complementary to the existing services provided by banks. These banks gain more customers as a result, and the complementary effect is greater in emerging financial markets.

“FinTech is disruptive but it is also a force for emancipation. Not only has it democratised the access to financial services for the masses in emerging markets, but it also plays a pivotal role on the road to greater financial inclusion,” Prof. Yeh says.

Policy Implications

As the FinTech industry continues to grow, policy makers and financial institutions are seeking ways to reap the benefits of technology further. Prof. Yeh and his co-authors think that their research findings can help policy makers and regulators to better utilise FinTech in different markets.

For developed financial markets, the researchers advise regulators to focus on implementing measures that can address the instability caused by FinTech. In contrast, regulators in emerging financial markets should consider designing specific measures to promote FinTech innovations.

“Regulators should give up on the idea of a one-size-fits-all regulation for FinTech,” Prof. Yeh comments. “What they need is to come up with a tailor-made framework that matches the characteristics of their own financial markets.”

Reference:

Derrick W.H. Fung, Wing Yan Lee, Jason J.H. Yeh and Fei Lung Yuen. Friend or foe: The divergent effects of FinTech on financial stability. Emerging Markets Review, Volume 45, December 2020, 100727

This article was first published in the China Business Knowledge (CBK) website by CUHK Business School: https://bit.ly/3swNHfZ.

About CUHK Business School

CUHK Business School comprises two schools – Accountancy and Hotel and Tourism Management – and four departments – Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing. Established in Hong Kong in 1963, it is the first business school to offer BBA, MBA and Executive MBA programmes in the region. Today, CUHK Business School offers 10 undergraduate programmes and 18 graduate programmes including MBA, EMBA, Master, MSc, MPhil and Ph.D. The School currently has more than 4,800 undergraduate and postgraduate students from 20+ countries/regions.

In the Financial Times Executive MBA ranking 2020, CUHK EMBA is ranked 15th in the world. In FT‘s 2021 Global MBA Ranking, CUHK MBA is ranked 48th. CUHK Business School has the largest number of business alumni (40,000+) among universities/business schools in Hong Kong – many of whom are key business leaders.

More information is available at http://www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk or by connecting with CUHK Business School on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cuhkbschool

Instagram: www.instagram.com/cuhkbusinessschool

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/school/cuhkbusinessschool

WeChat: CUHKBusinessSchool

#CUHKBusinessSchool

Driving Competitiveness by Closing Skills Gaps – Over Half of Employers Need External Help

  • 75% of employers see the importance of carrying out regular training needs analysis for their workforce to drive the competitiveness of their business.
  • 55% of employers agree that they need external help to assess the skills gaps of their employees.
  • 52% of employers believe that external assessments provide reliable and more accurate results.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 6 May 2021 – To remain competitive in Singapore’s recovering economy, three- quarters (75%) of employers in Singapore see the importance of carrying out regular training needs analysis for their workforce to drive the competitiveness of their business. However, more than half of them (55%) say they need external help to assess the skills gaps of their employees, alluding that more help is needed by companies to carry out effective skills mapping and learning, and development strategies.

These are some of the key findings in the recent NTUC LearningHub (NTUC LHUB)’s Employer Skills Survey report. The survey, which was conducted in February 2021 with business leaders across Singapore, aimed to uncover the most in-demand skillsets a year post-pandemic. The findings include the top skills by industry clusters: Built Environment, Essential Domestic Services, Lifestyle, Manufacturing and Professional Services, and Trade and Connectivity.

In addition, when asked if getting their employees’ capabilities assessed by an external consultant would yield a more accurate and actionable result compared to it being done internally, 52% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed, while 30% were neutral, 14% disagreed and only 6% strongly disagreed.


Commenting on the findings, NTUC LHUB’s Director of Institute of Business Excellence and Healthcare Academy, Jenaline Low, says, “With the evolving market demands and diversity across different sectors, learning can no longer be delivered through a ‘cookie cutter’ approach. We have observed that as much as companies are investing time and resources into training and upskilling their workforces, many of them still require help in their skills competency mapping and training needs analysis.”

“At NTUC LHUB, we offer companies advisory services to support for their specific learning needs. Working hand-in-hand with companies, we help them to be better poised to capture new business opportunities through workforce redesign for job expansion and enlargement. This is then supported by training needs analysis to re-skill and upskill through customised training solution design and delivery, and with back-end support such as funding and claims administration.”


To download the Employers Skills Report 2021, visit https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/employer-skills-report-2021/.

About NTUC LearningHub

NTUC LearningHub is the leading Continuing Education and Training provider in Singapore which aims to transform the lifelong employability of working people. Since our corporatisation in 2004, we have been working with employers and individual learners to provide learning solutions in areas such as Cloud, Infocomm Technology, Healthcare, Employability & Literacy, Business Excellence, Workplace Safety & Health, Security, Human Resources and Foreign Worker Training.

To date, NTUC LearningHub has helped over 25,000 organisations and achieved over 2.5 million training places across more than 500 courses with a pool of over 460 certified trainers. As a Total Learning Solutions provider to organisations, we also forge partnerships and offer a wide range of relevant end-to-end training solutions and work constantly to improve our training quality and delivery. In 2020, we have accelerated our foray into online learning with our Virtual Live Classes and, through working with best-in-class partners such as IBM, DuPont Sustainable Solutions and GO1, asynchronous online courses.

For more information, visit www.ntuclearninghub.com.

#NTUCLearningHub

Covid, Cyber, Compliance and ESG top risk concerns for financial services sector: Allianz

  • New AGCS report identifies key risks and loss trends for the financial services sector.
  • Covid-19 may drive market corrections and insolvencies – which could impact financial institutions’ balance sheets, increase exposures for directors and result in litigation.
  • AGCS analysis of $1bn of insurance industry claims show cyber incidents, including crime, is the top cause of loss. Insurers see a rising number of losses from outages or privacy breaches with third-party service providers a potential weak link.
  • Compliance issues are already one of the biggest drivers of claims and the burden is growing – particularly around ESG factors and climate change.

JOHANNESBURG/LONDON/MUNICH/NEW YORK/PARIS/SAO PAULO/SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 6 May 2021 – Financial institutions and their directors have to navigate a rapidly changing world, marked by new and emerging risks driven by cyber exposures based on the sector’s reliance on technology, a growing burden of compliance, and the turbulence of Covid-19, according to a new report Financial Services Risk Trends: An Insurer’s Perspective from Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). At the same time, the behavior and culture of financial institutions is under growing scrutiny from a wide range of stakeholders in areas such as sustainability, employment practices, diversity and inclusion and executive pay.

“The financial services sector faces a period of heightened risks. Covid-19 has caused one of the largest ever shocks to the global economy, triggering unprecedented economic and fiscal stimulus and record levels of government debt,” says Paul Schiavone, Global Industry Solutions Director Financial Services at AGCS. “Despite an improved economic outlook, considerable uncertainty remains. The threat of economic and market volatility still lies ahead while the sector is also increasingly needing to focus on so-called ‘non-financial’ risks such as cyber resilience, management of third parties and supply chains, as well as the impact of climate change and other Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) trends.”

The AGCS report highlights some of the most significant risk trends for banks, asset managers, private equity funds, insurers and other players in the financial services sector, as ranked in the Allianz Risk Barometer 2021, which surveyed over 900 industry respondents: Cyber incidents, Pandemic outbreak and Business interruption are the top three risks, followed by Changes in legislation and regulation – driven by ESG and climate change concerns in particular. Macroeconomic developments, such as rising credit risk and the ongoing low interest rate environment, ranked fifth.

The Allianz Risk Barometer findings are mirrored by an AGCS analysis of 7,654 insurance claims for the financial services segment over the past five years, worth approximately €870mn ($1.05bn). Cyber incidents, including crime, ranks as the top cause of loss by value, with other top loss drivers including negligence and shareholder derivative actions.

Covid 19 impact
Financial institutions are alive to the potential ramifications of government and central bank responses to the pandemic, such as low interest rates, rising government debt and the winding down of support and grants and loans to businesses. Large corrections or adjustments in markets – such as in equities, bonds or credit – could result in potential litigation from investors and shareholders, while an increase in insolvencies could also put some institutions’ own balance sheets under additional strain. “Claims may be brought against directors and officers in the financial services industry where there has been a perceived failure to foresee, disclose or manage or prepare for Covid-19 related risks,” says Shanil Williams, Global Head of Financial Lines at AGCS.

Cyber – highly exposed despite high level of security spend

The Covid-19 environment is also providing fertile ground for criminals seeking to exploit the crisis as the pandemic led to a rapid and largely unplanned increase in homeworking, electronic trading and a rapid acceleration in digitalization. Despite significant cyber security spend, financial services companies are an attractive target and face a wide range of cyber threats including business email compromise attacks, ransomware campaigns, ATM “jackpotting” – where criminals take control of cash machines through network servers – or supply chain attacks. The recent SolarWinds incident targeted banks and regulatory agencies, demonstrating the potential vulnerabilities of the sector to outages via their reliance on third-party service providers. Most financial institutions are now making use of cloud services-run software which comes with a growing reliance on a relatively small number of providers. Institutions face sizable business interruption exposures, as well as third party liabilities, when things go wrong.

“Third-party service providers can be the weak link in the cyber security chain,” says Thomas Kang, Head of Cyber, Tech and Media, North America at AGCS. “We recently had a bank client suffer a large data breach after a third-party vendor failed to delete personal information when decommissioning hardware. How financial institutions manage risks presented by the cloud will be critical going forward. They are effectively offloading a significant portion of cyber security responsibilities to a third-party. However, by partnering with the right cloud service provider, companies can also leverage the cloud as a way to manage their overall cyber exposure.”

Compliance challenges around cyber, cryptocurrencies and climate change

Compliance is one of the biggest challenges for the financial services industry, with legislation and regulation around cyber, new technologies and climate change and ESG factors constantly evolving and increasing. Indeed, the report notes that there has been a seismic shift in the regulatory view of privacy and cyber security in recent years with firms facing a growing bank of requirements. The consequences of data breaches are far-reaching, with more aggressive enforcement, higher fines and regulatory costs, and growing third party liability, followed by litigation. Regulators are increasingly focusing on business continuity, operational resilience and the management of third party risk following a number of major outages at banks and payment processing companies. Companies need to operationalize their response to regulation and privacy rights, not just look at cyber security.

Applications of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), biometrics and virtual currencies will likely raise new risks and liabilities in future, in large part from compliance and regulation as well. With AI, there has already been regulatory investigations in the US related to the use of unconscious bias in algorithms for credit scoring. There have also been a number of lawsuits related to the collection and use of biometric data. The growing acceptance of digital or cryptocurrencies as an asset class will ultimately present operational and regulatory risks for financial institutions with uncertainty around potential asset bubbles and concerns about money laundering, ransomware attacks, the prospect of third-party liabilities and even ESG issues as “mining” or creating cryptocurrencies uses large amounts of energy. Finally, the growth in stock market investment, guided by social media raises

mis-selling concerns – already one of the top causes of insurance claims.

ESG factors taking center stage

Financial institutions and capital markets are seen as an important facilitator of the change needed to tackle climate change and encourage sustainability. Again, regulation is setting the pace. There have been over 170 ESG regulatory measures introduced globally since 2018, with Europe leading the way. The surge in regulation, in combination with inconsistent approaches across jurisdictions and a lack of data availability, represents significant operational and compliance challenges for financial service providers. “Financial services may be ahead of many other sectors when it comes to addressing ESG topics, but it will still be an important factor shaping risk for years to come,” says David Van den Berghe, Global Head of Financial Institutions at AGCS. “Social and environmental trends are increasingly sources of regulatory change and liability, while increased disclosure and reporting will make it much easier to hold companies and their boards to account.”

At the same time, activist shareholders or stakeholders increasingly focus on ESG topics. Climate change litigation, in particular, is beginning to include financial institutions. Cases have previously tended to focus on the nature of investments, although there has been a growing use of litigation seeking to drive behavioral shifts and force disclosure debate. Besides climate change, broader social responsibilities are coming under scrutiny, with board remuneration and diversity being particular hot topics, and regulatory issues. “Companies that commit to addressing climate change and diversity and inclusion will need to follow through. For those that do not, it will come back to haunt them,” says Van den Berghe.

Claims trends and its impact on the insurance market

The AGCS report also highlights some of the major causes of claims that insurers see from financial institutions. The fact that compliance risk is growing is concerning, as compliance issues are already one of the biggest drivers of claims. “Keeping abreast of compliance in a rapidly-changing world is a tough task for companies and their directors and officers,” says Williams. “Their compliance burden is enormous, and is now accompanied by growing regulatory activism, legal action and litigation funding.”

Cyber incidents already result in the most expensive claims and insurers are seeing a rising number of technology-related losses including claims made against directors following major privacy breaches. Other examples include sizable claims related to fraudulent payment instructions and “fake president” scams. Such payments can be in the millions of dollars. AGCS has also handled a number of liability claims arising from technical problems with exchanges and electronic processing systems where systems have gone down and clients have not been able to execute trades, and have made claims against policyholders for loss of opportunity. There have also been claims where a system failure has caused damages to a third party; one financial institution suffered a significant loss after a trading system crashed causing processing failures for customers.

Recent loss activity, compounded by Covid-19 uncertainty, have contributed to a recasting of the insurance market for financial institutions, characterized by adjusted pricing and enhanced focus on risk selection by insurers, but also a growing interest for alternative risk transfer solutions, in addition to traditional insurance. Insurance is increasingly an important part of the capital stack of financial institutions and a growing number are partnering with insurers to manage risk and regulatory capital requirements or utilizing captive insurers to compensate for changes in the insurance markets or to finance more difficult-to-place risks.

“At AGCS, we are committed to engaging with financial institutions to help them mitigate their exposures and develop adequate risk transfer solutions for a sector that is embarking on a major transformation, driven by fast-paced technology adoption and growing ESG issues, while having to master the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic,” says Schiavone.

About Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) is a leading global corporate insurance carrier and a key business unit of Allianz Group. We provide risk consultancy, Property-Casualty insurance solutions and alternative risk transfer for a wide spectrum of commercial, corporate and specialty risks across 10 dedicated lines of business.

Our customers are as diverse as business can be, ranging from Fortune Global 500 companies to small businesses, and private individuals. Among them are not only the world’s largest consumer brands, tech companies and the global aviation and shipping industry, but also satellite operators or Hollywood film productions. They all look to AGCS for smart answers to their largest and most complex risks in a dynamic, multinational business environment and trust us to deliver an outstanding claims experience.

Worldwide, AGCS operates with its own teams in 31 countries and through the Allianz Group network and partners in over 200 countries and territories, employing over 4,400 people. As one of the largest Property-Casualty units of Allianz Group, we are backed by strong and stable financial ratings. In 2020, AGCS generated a total of €9.3 billion gross premium globally.

www.agcs.allianz.com

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