ING may sell $1 billion Hong Kong insurance unit in separate deal

HONG KONG — ING is exploring a separate sale of its roughly $1 billion Hong Kong insurance business, sources said, a move that could further complicate the auction of its Asian operations.

The Dutch insurer is selling its Asia divisions to repay a 2008 government bailout. It failed to secure a single buyer for the entire Asian group, valued at about $7 billion. As a result, ING decided to split the auction into three pieces – Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia.

The Hong Kong business was originally lumped in with Southeast Asia, together with Malaysia and Thailand. But with the Southeast Asia sale making slow progress due to foreign ownership restrictions, ING is keen to expedite parts of the nearly six-month old process.

The sources, who declined to be identified as the discussions are confidential, cautioned that ING has not made a final decision.

"Divestment may take place through multiple transactions," an ING spokeswoman said.

While selling Hong Kong separately may extend the auction process for the Asia business, it could allow ING to extract better value from a buyer focused just on that specific market, sources said.

A successful Hong Kong sale may also allow ING the flexibility to accept lower offers for South Korea and Japan, which have received lukewarm response so far in the bidding.

Front-runners

A consortium led by Hong Kong's Richard Li, the son of Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing, may prove to be a leading contender to buy just the Hong Kong portion from ING, one of the sources said.

Li previously ran an insurance business in Hong Kong, which he exited in 2007 by selling a controlling stake to Dutch and Belgian financial services firm Fortis.

Pan-Asian life insurer AIA Group Ltd. and Canadian insurer Manulife Financial Corp. are the leading contenders to buy ING's Southeast Asia operations, sources have previously said. Li's bidding group has also expressed interest in the Southeast Asia units.

ING's auction has put the Malaysian and Thai regulators in a bind as the two countries do not allow foreign insurers to buy 100 percent of domestic insurance operations. ING launched businesses in the two countries before the regulations went into effect.

ING's Southeast Asian operations are valued between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, with Malaysia accounting for about two-thirds of the total value.

An AIA spokeswoman declined to comment. Spokesmen for Manulife and Richard Li also declined to comment. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

World Bank: 75% of poor don't have bank accounts

(CNN) -- Three quarters of the world's poor are living without a bank account, impeded by physical distance from banks and by bureaucratic roadblocks, according to a World Bank report.

In a 2011 survey of 150,000 adults in 148 countries, it found that more than 75% of adults earning less than $2 per day are "unbanked" or do not use a formal financial institution.

Of 70,000 respondents without a bank account, 65% cited not having enough money to use one as the most important reason. Other top reasons included the cost of opening a bank account being too expensive and a lack of trust in banks.

"I hope policy makers will use this research to help make sure everyone, everywhere, has access to financial services," Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima of the Netherlands and the UN Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development said in a news release.

Among regions surveyed, people in the Middle East and North Africa have most difficulties, with only 18% reporting an account. In high-income economies, nine out of 10 adults have an account at a formal financial institution.

Being 'unbanked' is linked to inequalities, according to The World Bank. The richest 20% of adults in developing countries are more than twice as likely to have an account as the poorest 20%.

Also, in developing economies only 37% of women have a bank account compared with 46% of men keeping their savings in financial institutions.

A bank account could enhance economic opportunities among the poor, as saving and borrowing enables them to start a business or invest in education. Instead, they often rely on money lenders charging high fees, the World Bank says.

"Providing financial services to the 2.5 billion people who are 'unbanked' could boost economic growth and opportunity for the world's poor," says World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.

Mobile banking is becoming a popular alternative to money lenders among the poor, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. These money transfers through mobile phones enable them to pay bills or make deposits through a text message without traveling or setting up a formal bank account.

Mobile banking is especially popular in Kenya, where about 7 in 10 adults have access to mobile money services, according to Safaricom, a leading mobile network provider that offers money transfers via text messaging through its M-Pesa service.

The world's poorest live in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, with almost 70% of adults living on less than $2 a day. In South Asia, almost 60%of people and just over 50% in Middle East and North Africa live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank Report.

source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/19/business/poor-bank-accounts/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Bank to install palm-reading ATMs

TOKYO — A regional bank in central Japan will become the country’s first financial institution to adopt automated teller machines that will identify users by their palms.

Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank in Gifu Prefecture said it would install about a dozen palm-scanning biometric ATMs in late September and planned more in the future.

Under the system, developed by Fujitsu Ltd, users will be able to prove who they are simply by scanning their hands and entering a PIN and date of birth, the bank said.

Demand for a system that does not require a cashcard or a passbook increased after the earthquake-tsunami disaster that ravaged northeast Japan last March in which many people lost personal possessions and were left without the means to get at their money.

The bank said it will be only the second in the world to introduce biometric-dependent ATMs, after Ziraat Bank, Turkey’s largest state bank.

source: japantoday.com