Briefs: Bartercard in China, Alibaba's home truth, lessons in currency rigging, and more

Banking Day staff
  • BPS Technology, which operates the Bartercard business, has signed a licensing agreement to introduce Bartercard in China. Australian Capital Express, which is owned by a group of Chinese businessmen, will pay A$3.2 million for the right to offer Bartercard in 21 Chinese provinces. Bartercard is a closed proprietary reciprocal trading system, whose member businesses trade goods and services with each other using a digital currency called a Trade Dollar. It has been in business for 23 years. BPS Technology was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange last September.

  • APRA is understood to be reluctant to respond to the financial system inquiry's call for Australian banks to boost their capital levels until the Basel Committee has clarified how risk weights on mortgages should be calculated, the AFR has reported; meanwhile  the nation's credit unions are urging the prudential regulator to just do it and level the playing field.

  • A clash of cultures was evident as US-listed Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba prepares to report its financial results for the quarter ended 31 December. Alibaba's shares have dropped 4.4 per cent over an escalating and public war of words beween the company and a Chinese government regulator, who has criticised  Taobao, Alibaba's largest e-commerce platform, over the level of fake goods for sale on its platforms.  Its New York-traded shares have lost about a sixth of their value since November, according to Forbes. The company's September 2014 IPO was the world's largest, and confirmed Alibaba chairman Jack Ma as China's richest man.

  • A US federal judge has cleared the way for a group of large US investors to claim damages against 12 major banks, on charges that they colluded to manipulate the WM/Reuters Closing Spot Rates, known as the Fix. Those accused of causing harm to clients are in the US$5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. The bank defendants include Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS. The lawsuit is separate from the more than $4.3 billion criminal and civil probes worldwide into whether banks rigged currency rates to boost profit at the expense of customers and investors.

  • Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has confirmed its 'A' issuer credit rating applies to Suncorp Group's holding company. The group's insurance industry and country risk was assessed as low, based on the distribution of written premiums between its Australian and New Zealand portfolios. It also benefits from material diversity of earnings between its non-life, life, and banking businesses, whose primary risks are not closely correlated to each other. S&P expects the group's life and banking businesses will contribute at least 25 per cent of group earnings.