Hubbis

​​​​​​​Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming part of the financial crime compliance conversation, but Jordan Lo, Head of APAC at IMTF, argued that institutions should not treat it as a standalone answer. The greater challenge is end-to-end execution: how banks organise their workflows, connect teams, handle documentation, secure data, and bring structured and unstructured information into a coherent operating model.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing financial crime compliance, but Alwyn Loh, Partner at KPMG, argued that institutions must approach the shift with discipline. The challenge is not simply to adopt new tools faster, but to innovate while maintaining trust, meeting regulatory expectations and keeping pace with criminals who are also using new technology, but without the same constraints.

Julius Baer has appointed Phoenix Ma as head of services and solutions for its intermediaries business in Asia. Based in Hong Kong, Ma will join the Intermediaries Asia management team and oversee client servicing across the region, according to a LinkedIn announcement by Markus Haeny, the bank’s market head for intermediaries in Asia. Her responsibilities will include leading operational initiatives and aligning the bank’s service offering with the needs of its financial intermediary partners.

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) recently held their 17th high-level meeting on enforcement cooperation in Hong Kong to further strengthen enforcement collaboration. Mr Michael Duignan, the SFC’s Executive Director of Enforcement, and Mr Li Yubai, Director-General of the Enforcement Bureau of the CSRC, attended the meeting.

The family office has become one of the defining institutions of modern Asian wealth management. Yet as the market matures and standards rise, the gap between the headline narrative and the operational reality is widening. For families seeking to preserve and transfer wealth across generations, the question is no longer simply whether to establish a family office, but whether the structures, governance and advisory frameworks around it are genuinely fit for purpose.

Standard Chartered has launched an Asia-Pacific multi-asset fund managed with support from BlackRock, marking the eighth sub-fund established under the bank’s variable capital company platform. The Signature Select APAC Allocation Plus fund will invest across equities, fixed income and liquid alternative strategies in the Asia-Pacific region, Standard Chartered said in a statement.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in financial crime compliance is often treated as a technology story. For Dr Sebastian Hetzler, Co-CEO of IMTF, the deeper issue is organisational. Banks and financial institutions cannot meet today’s financial crime risks by applying new tools to old operating models. They need to connect data, disciplines, teams and decision-making processes across the full anti-financial crime (AFC) framework.

In the latest Hubbis Digital Dialogue Series, senior practitioners from financial services, technology and consulting gathered to examine how financial institutions are rethinking financial crime compliance in the age of artificial intelligence. Hosted in partnership with IMTF, the discussion focused on the move from fragmented control functions towards more connected, data-led and enterprise-wide approaches to anti-financial crime.

HSBC has announced the successful private placement of its first digitally native structured product: it involves USD-denominated notes issued in Hong Kong, supported by Marketnode, an Asia-Pacific digital market infrastructure operator. Marketnode acted as the tokenisation agent, enabling digitally native issuance directly on a blockchain. It also acted as the digital paying agent, managing payment flows between issuer and investor.

BlackRock has expanded its Preqin benchmarks and indices offering, giving clients access to private markets indices and customizable peer benchmarks across its Aladdin technology ecosystem. The enhanced offering is available to clients of Preqin Pro, Aladdin, eFront and Aladdin Wealth. It is designed to support functions including peer comparison, manager evaluation, policy benchmarking, portfolio construction, performance measurement and investment reporting.