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Corporate payment delay trend stabilized, but risks and uncertainty remain:Coface Asia Corporate Payment Survey 2021

On economic improvement in 2021,Australian firms were the most optimistic, with 80% of respondents anticipating higher growth, followed by India (76%), China (73%), Malaysia (73%) and Taiwan (71%). In contrast, Japan was the only country where less than two-thirds of respondents (61%) expect an improvement in economic growth during 2021.

By sectors, automotive is the most confident regarding year-ahead sales, with 66% of respondents expecting an improvement. This was followed by energy (64%), metals (64%), paper (63%) and pharmaceutical (61%). The highest proportion of companies anticipating an improvement in cash flows over the next 12 months were found in automotive, agri-food, and pharmaceutical at 55% each, followed by metals (53%), paper (52%), and chemicals (51%).

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Cyber laws, rules, and guidance must be workable, risk-based, clear, transparent, and consistently applied across companies and jurisdictions:US Insurers

Insurance is an important economic recovery resource for victims of ransomware attacks.  Prohibitions on the reimbursement of legal ransom payments presents potential unintended consequence such as eliminating a meaningful risk management resource.
Insurance policy and underwriting activities should not be misconstrued as cybersecurity risk assessments, which provide the insured with confidence that their security measures are sufficient to avoid or eliminate ransomware attacks. 

Insurance is an important economic recovery resource for victims of ransomware attacks.  Prohibitions on the reimbursement of legal ransom payments presents potential unintended consequence such as eliminating a meaningful risk management resource. 
Like a customer’s decision on how to manage cyber risk, insurers must also be able to determine their risk appetite through careful underwriting and appropriate coverage offerings.  

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Number of global migrant workers rises to 169 million since 2017: ILO report

More than two-thirds of international migrant workers are concentrated in high-income countries. Of the 169 million international migrant workers, 63.8 million (37.7 per cent) are in Europe and Central Asia. Another 43.3 million (25.6 per cent) are in the Americas. Hence, collectively, Europe and Central Asia and the Americas host 63.3 per cent of all migrant workers.

The Arab States, and Asia and the Pacific each host about 24 million migrant workers, which, in total, corresponding to 28.5 per cent of all migrant workers. In Africa, there are 13.7 million migrant workers, representing 8.1 per cent of the total.

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Emerging Asia: a $3.8 trillion-per-year pension savings gap

“The shortfall in saving for adequate and sustainable retirements cannot be bridged solely by government resources. Strong partnership between the state, the private sector and individuals will be key.Protecting people throughout their saving lifecycle has the potential to reduce poverty, ill-health and even social unrest, and should form a core building block of emerging markets’ longterm economic growth,” ,” said Jerome Jean Haegeli,Group Chief Economist, Swiss Re 

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The trillion dollar climate finance challenge (and opportunity)

Many countries lack the financial resources to make the transition to clean energy and a sustainable way of life that could reverse climate change.

The UN says that says that climate finance is the answer because not investing will cost even more in the long-term, but also because there are significant opportunities for investors.

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Green Dividend: China’s electric car capital has lessons for the world

“At the beginning, people had many concerns about EVs, such as safety or the convenience of charging,” Gou Yi, a deputy chief at Liuzhou’s branch of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said in an interview.

“What we did was to make sure our citizens felt it’s very comfortable to use EVs. People have realized how economical and easy electric cars are, and how much cleaner our air has become after more and more EVs hit the roads.”

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Explainer: Climate change and financial disclosure – what’s at stake?

Global regulators are working towards creating a common set of guidelines for assessing climate-related financial risks.

The Financial Stability Board, an international body that monitors the global financial system, created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which released in 2017 recommendations on climate risk disclosure.

A network of central banks also released climate-change scenarios and guides for measuring risks, while the U.N. Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) last year published methods insurers can use to disclose climate risks.

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Caregivers in crisis: Pandemic begins to ebb but trauma persists

The trauma of dealing with the illness lasts much longer than the illness itself, said psychiatrist Jyoti Kapoor.

“This has taken a toll on the psychological health of most caregivers with longer lasting symptoms similar to PTSD. There has been an increase in instances of acute stress reaction, panic attacks, psychosomatic manifestations and psychosis in Covid patients.

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