Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

In this digital age, people are heavily reliant on online payments and new payment technologies for transactions. Keeping up with the trend, fraudsters are continuously finding creative ways to perpetuate their scams.  What role can data analytics plays in financial fraud detection, and what are the best strategies that regulators can implement to prevent financial crimes? Ian Holmes, Global Lead for Enterprise Fraud Solutions, Director at SAS explains. 

According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) advance report of how Singapore’s labour market fared in the whole of 2023, with high inflation this year eating into the spending power of Singapore residents, the real incomes for workers at the 20th percentile fell by 3 percent compared with the same period last year, while that for median workers dipped by 2.3 percent, even as nominal wages grew. Rahul Chawla, Partner and Head of Talent Solutions for Southeast Asia, Aon discusses with the report with us and the reason why employers are not keeping up pace with the rate of inflation. 

Skincare and cosmetics, yes that’s what we are going to talk about on this segment today!  Founded in 1956, our guest BABOR BEAUTY GROUP is a German family business that started out as a niche brand for professionals within the skincare industry.  The company has been headed by the third generation of the owner family since 2014 and has seen rapid growth that made it into the powerhouse for innovation, manufacturing and the marketing of industry leading luxury skincare brands.  Sales have grown from a double-digit million amount to over 240 million Euros. On the whole, the BABOR BEAUTY GROUP now employs over 900 people worldwide, with its brands represented in 70 countries by distributors or subsidiaries.  Question is – what did the third generation owners do differently to unlock the value we’ve seen, and what are the growth opportunities for the future? Speaking of growth, BABOR now wants to deepen its presence in international markets. The goal is to increase the share of its business outside of Central Europe from about 30 per cent to between 60 and 70 per cent by 2030.  But what does the firm intend to do to achieve such ambitious goals, and which is the most important geographical market it will focus on as a starting point? Meanwhile, the firm also recently underwent a rebranding initiative to strengthen its global premium positioning, but how far will this complement BABOR’s other efforts to internationalise? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Tim Waller, Co-CEO, BABOR BEAUTY GROUP and Group President, BABOR & Premium Brands.

Singapore stocks opened weaker today, following heavy losses of the top-traded counter. In early trade, the Straits Times Index (STI) headed down 0.2 per cent to 3,078.74 points after 45.7 million securities changed hands in the broader market. In terms of companies to watch, we have Manulife US Reit. Units fell as much as 27.5% after the counter resumed trading today.  Its manager had earlier revealed plans to raise funds through a mix of asset dispositions and a sponsor-lender loan to remedy its financial covenant breach.  Elsewhere from Japan’s Nikkei rallying to log its best month in two years to Microsoft taking a non-voting, observer position on OpenAI’s board, more international headlines remain in focus.  On Market View, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian dived into the details with David Chow, Director, Azure Capital.

Greece has accused Britain of showing "a lack of respect" by abruptly cancelling a meeting between their leaders at short notice in a dispute over ancient Greek sculptures brought to Britain in the early 19th century. What are the Parthenon Sculptures at the centre of the row between Britain and Greece? How will this dispute reflect on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at a time when the UK is still in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis?  Cedomir Nestorovic, Professor of Geopolitics, ESSEC Business School, Asia-Pacific breaks it down for us on Euro Watch.

Switzerland is once again the world's most talent-competitive country, followed by Singapore, according to INSEAD's 2023 Global Talent Competitiveness Index.  How have the world's most talent competitive countries competed to attract and nurture talent over the past decade? What are the lessons we can take away from the talent landscape and what is the outlook for talent competitiveness in the years to come?  Felipe Monteiro, Co-author and Academic Director of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2023 and Senior Affiliate Professor of Strategy, INSEAD explains. 

With the resurgence of global travel following the pandemic, our global perspective is more important than ever. Common to all our global work: experiences come first – personality-forward for our brand operators and tailored for unique experiences that speak to their brands and the local context. What opportunities do these post-pandemic hospitality trends present for architects and designers? We pose this question to Patrick Fejer, CEO of B+H Architects. Meanwhile, landing in Singapore after almost a decade, the World Architecture Festival is launching its 2023 edition at the Marina Bay Sands between November 29 and December 1, 2023. Patrick gives us a peek into this year's program.

Building a talent ecosystem to help the 120 million professionals in Southeast Asia grow their careers. Well, that’s the aspiration and the mission of our guest for today Glints. Founded in 2015, Glints is a recruitment platform that allows organisations to hire the right talent from anywhere in Southeast Asia.  With operations spanning across key markets such as Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, the firm has so far empowered over 3 million talent and supported 50,000 organisations in realising their human potential.  And according to a Tech In Asia report, the firm had in September registered “record-high” revenues in the 2022 financial year of S$45.4 million, an 85% year-on-year increase.  Glints attributed this to growing demand for cross border talent. This comes as firms become more willing to hunt for talent outside of their head offices.  But why is this the case? What bearing will this have on Glints’ strategy to acquire talent within Southeast Asia, and how far will this trend continue to drive Glint’s business looking ahead? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Ying Cong Seah, Co-founder, Glints.

As an antithesis to usual Christmas celebrations with fabricated tree structures, Millenia Walk is encouraging a Singapore-first, eco-friendly Christmas celebration this year as part of the Millenia Walk Christmas With Our Trees initiative and its ongoing sustainability efforts.  This includes showcasing a 7-metre-tall Christmas tree made entirely out of 5.5 tonnes of salvaged wood in the form of “shelves” from our local felled trees.  Melanie Yeap, Head of Retail for the Pontiac Land Group and Quek Shian Pin, General Manager, Timber Actually share more about the inspiration behind the initiative as well as the importance of upcycling our local felled trees.

Among cities ranked as the world’s best for annual prime property price growth, three in the top 12 are Australian, according to Knight Frank’s Prime Global Cities Index Q3 2023 which tracked the movement of 46 luxury residential markets worldwide. Given it's potential in 2023, how will Sydney’s luxury property market play out in 2024? What does it mean for international investors here in Singapore? Alex Adams, Head of Sales and Marketing, Aqualand and Nerida Consibee, Economist share their insights.