Mlava

While the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy announcement has sent shockwaves rumbling through the U.S. financial community, its impact on the Asian financial markets could be less than earth shattering, despite Lehman’s $1.6 billion in outstanding loans from seven Japanese banks, including Aozora Bank, Mizuho Corporate, Shinsei, the Bank of China, and a Hong Kong-based unit of [...]

The fallout from the heavily speculated government rescue of invalid mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has already begun. In fact, the toll on the JPY was almost immediate after the announcement that the U.S. Treasury would take over as online trading activity tilted toward a rash of carry trades that sent the JPY [...]

To help Japanese citizens with high fuel and food prices, the government is considering an economic stimulus plan. Speculation has placed the size of the stimulus package around 2 to 3 trillion yen ($18.35 to $27.53 billion in USD), although no formal announcement has been made yet. Some anticipate that it may be as much [...]

The big forex news for the month of July 2008 in South Korea was the huge drop in the nation’s foreign exchange reserves, as reported by The Korea Times. According to the Bank of Korea, forex reserves dropped $10.58 billion from June 2008—the biggest drop in one month since 1971. This put the reserves at [...]

The People’s Bank of China launched its new trans-bank foreign currency payment system in late July 2008, says Shanghai Daily. Although foreign currency is banned from circulation on the mainland, authorities have made an exception for payments such as trade insurance payments between enterprises. The system, which was put into inception in February of 2007, [...]