Aurelia Butler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said on Tuesday the resignation of the communist-ruled country’s second president in little over a year has not affected Hanoi’s foreign and economic policies, given its collective leadership and policymaking.Asked during a visit to the United States about Vo Van Thuong’s resignation last week, Son told Washington’s Brookings Institution think tank Vietnam was undergoing an anti-corruption campaign that has been welcomed by the international community and businesses.”The resignation of the president I think in Vietnam has not affect(ed) our foreign policy as well as our own policies of economic development,” he said.”If you look at the situation in Vietnam, we have collective leadership, we have collective foreign policy. We have collective-decided economic development.” Son cited Communist Party congresses held every five years where economic development plans are set out and agreed among party leaders. “And I think (if) one or two figures in the leadership has resigned, (it) does not change this situation.” Son, who held talks in Washington on Monday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, said Vietnam hopes Washington will soon recognize it as a market economy.The U.S. currently considers Vietnam a ‘non-market economy’ in import injury cases, which can lead to significantly higher anti-dumping duties and Hanoi’s ambassador to Washington warned this year that maintaining the resulting punitive duties on Vietnamese goods is bad for increasingly close bilateral ties.Son said the United States and Vietnam should boost economic trade and investment cooperation after agreeing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership last year.”We should focus on supply chain resilience, infrastructure connectivity, digital economy, energy, green economy and logistics,” he said.Thuong’s resignation has raised questions about stability in Vietnam, given he was only elected last year after the sudden dismissal of his predecessor.With accumulated foreign direct investment higher than its gross domestic product, Vietnam’s stability is crucial to multinationals with large operations in the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub, including U.S. firm Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which has many key suppliers in the country.That stability, which has been guaranteed for decades by a state tightly controlled by the Communist Party, now looks less certain, analysts say, although they agree the current leadership changes will not impact the country’s key policies, including its “bamboo diplomacy” aimed at keeping good relations with the United States and China at the same time.Son said Vietnam sought good relations with all major powers and welcomed ongoing efforts to stabilize relations between the United States and China.(This story has been corrected to say ‘second president in little over a year,’ not third, in paragraph 1) More

The ratings agency downgraded First Commonwealth (NYSE:FCF) Financial, M&T Bank (NYSE:MTB), Synovus (NYSE:SNV) Financial, Trustmark (NASDAQ:TRMK) and Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) to “negative” from “stable,” it said. “The negative outlook revisions reflect the possibility that stress in CRE markets may hurt the asset quality and performance of the five banks, which have some of the highest exposures to CRE loans among banks we rate,” S&P said. Representatives for the banks did not immediately respond to request for comments outside business hours.Investor concerns over regional banks’ CRE exposure intensified this year after New York Community Bancorp (NYSE:NYCB) flagged a surprise quarterly loss citing provisions on soured CRE loans, which triggered a sell-off in U.S. regional banking shares. The bank has sold assets to shore up its balance sheet. Investors and analysts have been worried that higher borrowing costs and lingering low occupancy rates for office spaces in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic could result in more lenders taking losses as borrowers default on loans. Tuesday’s downgrades come a year after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (OTC:SBNY), which heightened investor sensitivity about the health of U.S. regional banks. In addition to CRE exposure, the sector is also facing challenges from the rising cost of retaining deposits amid high interest rates.As of Tuesday, S&P had negative outlooks on nine U.S. banks, or 18% of those it rates, it said, adding most of those ratings “relate, at least in part to sizable CRE exposures.” The company rates a range of banks of varying sizes. More

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Britain’s politicians are failing to champion UK trade and inward investment because of fears over reawakening old divisions on Brexit, the British Chambers of Commerce has warned.Goods exports and inward investment have struggled in the years since Britain left the EU, but the UK trade association warned that both Conservative and Labour politicians were still failing to deliver on the promise of “Global Britain” that was made after Brexit.Martha Lane Fox, the tech entrepreneur and president of the BCC, said that, after years of instability, urgent work was needed to secure the UK’s reputation as an investment partner and trading nation. “There is sometimes a reluctance among politicians to either recognise problems or suggest solutions, because of how they may be viewed by either side of the Brexit divide. This must stop,” she said.“Our politicians must be bolder in their decision-making. They must set out a strategy on how we manage EU regulation and — where it makes sense — to diverge so British business can benefit,” she added.Lane Fox was speaking ahead of the launch on Wednesday of a BCC report setting out how the next UK government should move on from the old Brexit debates and focus on improving conditions for trade and investment.Martha Lane Fox: ‘There is sometimes a reluctance among politicians to either recognise problems or suggest solutions, because of how they may be viewed by either side of the Brexit divide. This must stop’ More

Prosecutors said the Seychelles-based exchange sought business from U.S. customers without registering with the Treasury Department and putting in place procedures to verify clients’ identities as required by U.S. law.KuCoin posted on social media site X that customer assets are safe and its lawyers are looking into the allegations.”KuCoin respect the laws and regulations of various countries and strictly adheres to compliance standards,” it said.Prosecutors also charged the exchange’s founders, Chinese nationals Chun Gan, 34, and Ke Tang, 39, with conspiracy. They remain at large, according to prosecutors.The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission separately filed a civil lawsuit against KuCoin alleging it failed to register its futures and swaps activities with the regulator.KuCoin in December agreed to block New York users from its platform and pay $22 million to settle the state’s lawsuit accusing it of failing to register there.KuCoin trails Binance, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Kraken among cryptocurrency spot exchanges on factors including traffic, liquidity and trading volumes, according to the data company CoinMarketCap. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top U.S. agency for consumer financial protection will scrutinize credit card reward programs after a surge in customer complaints, its chief said on Tuesday.Rohit Chopra, director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has clashed with credit card issuers since last year over regulations capping late fees.”We are going to be looking into the credit card rewards market due to an increase in consumer complaints,” Chopra told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference in Washington.His remarks signaled the agency could also issue rules or take enforcement actions against banks offering products aimed at affluent clients.”What the marketing gurus and consultants are telling credit card issuers is that they should focus consumers’ attention on splashy rewards, but then withhold information from them when they’re paying lots of interest and could switch to a lower-rate card, even within the same bank,” Chopra said.Credit card issuers sometimes hide the “darker side” of their offerings of cash back, miles and points in their terms and conditions, Chopra told attendees at the Consumer Bankers Association conference earlier Tuesday. The fine print can allow card issuers to revoke rewards or make points difficult to redeem, he said.Chopra has emphasized the need for more robust risk management and tougher regulation of the financial industry after three regional lenders collapsed last year. He is also a protege of Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a vocal critic of the banking industry who was instrumental in creating the CFPB. The watchdog was established after the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive financial practices. Chopra has taken an expansive view of this remit, targeting big tech companies that offer services such as digital payments.Companies that offer “Buy-now, pay-later” (BNPL) services could also face stricter rules, Chopra said, underscoring a longstanding stance. Lenders have expressed concern that credit reports exclude data from consumers’ BNPL transactions, resulting in incomplete assessments of borrowers’ financial health.”We’re starting to see ‘buy-now, pay-later,’ firms shift from being at the point of sale with retailers to now selling goods through their own proprietary apps, using lots of personal data to induce more purchasing and borrowing,” Chopra said. “So that obviously raises issues that we continue to look into.” More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.Chinese industrial profits and Australian inflation top the Asian and Pacific economic calendar on Wednesday, against a backdrop of reasonably firm global equity markets and risk appetite ahead of key U.S. inflation data due later in the week. The economic, business and political spheres are also set to collide in Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with U.S. business leaders, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter, in a follow up to his November dinner with U.S. investors in San Francisco.The audience with Xi follows Chinese Premier Li Qiang not meeting visiting foreign CEOs at the China Development Forum in Beijing on March 24 to 25, which reignited concerns over transparency in China’s economy and deteriorating economic ties with the United States.But Xi’s personal intervention might be a sign of his commitment to ensuring China is open for business, and improving Sino-U.S. relations. Or at least preventing them from deteriorating any further.China’s economy, markets and investors could certainly do with some good news.Chinese stocks are on track to post their first quarterly gain in four quarters, but that is due to a strong rebound from five-year lows in February that has since faded – Chinese stocks are barely up for the month of March.This has held Asian stocks back too – the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index is up only 1% this year, significantly lagging the MSCI World (+7%) and the MSCI global emerging market index (+1.5%).Figures on Wednesday will give the first insight into the health of China’s industrial firms’ profitability this year, with January and February numbers due for release. Industrial profits fell 2.3% in 2023, their second straight yearly decline. But there were some signs of improvement at the end of last year – profits rose 16.8% in December from a year earlier, extending gains for a fifth month.The other main economic indicator on Wednesday is Australian consumer inflation for February. Economists expect the annual rate to rise slightly to 3.5% from 3.4% in January.Aussie rates traders don’t expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to begin cutting rates until September, and are only pricing in 40 basis points of easing this year.The yen, meanwhile, remains perilously close to lows not seen since 1990. Japanese officials are cranking up the verbal intervention – Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki warned on Tuesday that “rapid currency moves are undesirable” – but it isn’t translating into much upside for the yen.That may only come if there’s a sufficient decline in U.S. yields and rate expectations, which may not come until after U.S. PCE inflation on Friday. A hotter-than-forecast report, however, and the yen could quickly slide through 152 per dollar and force Tokyo to act.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Wednesday:- China industrial profits (Jan, Feb)- China President Xi Jinping meets U.S. business leaders- Australia consumer inflation (February) (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Josie Kao) More