The Australian Banking Association (ABA) has released a report that shows banks have increased their lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by 28% in the last financial year. The report, titled Banking By Numbers, reveals that banks issued 302,945 new loans worth $200 billion to SMEs in 2023, bringing the total amount of credit to SMEs to $588 billion. Banks support SMEs amid rising costs and challenges The ABA…

Bahrain’s banking sector has witnessed a remarkable surge in customer deposits in the second quarter of 2023, reaching $86 billion, the highest in the GCC region. This was despite the challenges posed by the rising interest rates in the global markets, which have affected the lending and bond markets. Bahrain leads GCC in deposit growth According to a report by Kamco Invest, a Kuwait-based investment company, Bahrain-listed banks reported a…

The statement of financial position, also known as the balance sheet, is one of the most important financial statements for banks and other financial institutions. It shows the value of their assets, liabilities, and equity at a given point in time. It also reflects their risk profile, profitability, and liquidity. Assets: What Banks Own Assets are the resources that banks own or control, such as cash, loans, securities, and property.…

What happened? OCBC Bank, one of the largest banks in Singapore, faced a network outage on Monday morning (Aug 28) that affected all of its banking services, including mobile and online banking, PayNow, ATMs, Velocity and cards. The bank said in a Facebook post that it was experiencing “technical problems with our systems” and that customers could visit its branches for urgent transactions. The outage started at around 8.30am and…

Country Garden’s subsidiary in Malaysia has adequate funds to service loans The Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the country’s central bank, said on Monday that the domestic banks had limited exposure to China’s largest property developer, Country Garden, and faced low financial stability risk from it. The BNM was responding to queries from Reuters after Country Garden missed two dollar coupon payments this month, sparking concerns over its financial health. According…

Singapore’s second-largest bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC), announced on Monday that it had restored all its banking services after experiencing a technical problem that affected various channels. The bank assured its customers that their money and data were safe and secure throughout the disruption. What happened? According to the bank, the technical issue started at 8.33 a.m. on Monday and impacted its consumer and business banking customers. The affected channels…