Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

Want to help rent out a flat?  Criminal syndicates pushing illegal e-vaporisers are hunting for exactly that, young people willing to rent rooms as secret storage.  When raids happen, it’s the tenant who takes the fall. So how do these schemes actually work? The Straits Times went undercover to speak to the advertisers to find out. On The Big Story, Hongbin Jeong speaks with Andrew Wong, Correspondent, The Straits Times, to find out more.

Singapore is on the brink of one of its largest intergenerational wealth transfers. Younger high-net-worth families are rethinking legacy planning, balancing tradition with modern investment strategies, and exploring new ways to safeguard and grow their wealth. What trends are shaping this transfer, and which strategies are redefining how wealth is passed on? On Wealth Tracker, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Ray Ang, Singapore CEO of Grandtag Financial Consultancy, to find out more.

Would you leave a distinguished career in the civil service to redesign what a ‘good life’ means in Singapore? Three female founders have done just that to establish a development studio that helps young people step off Singapore’s achievement treadmill and design lives of greater meaning. On The Right Business, Hongbin Jeong speaks with Clarice Song and Hong Ruoyi, Co-Founders of Bold at Work, to find out more.

Singapore stocks opened higher this morning, despite Asian markets trading mixed as investors await the outcome of the US Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting, where it is expected to cut interest rates.  The Benchmarket STI closed lower -0.3% at 4,323 points The Asian benchmark this week also surpassed its previous all-time high set in early 2021, helped by a weaker dollar and a strong AI outlook. While analysts say current forecasts are too optimistic, many are also cautious about the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes. What are the risks investors should note and how will potential interest rate cuts influence Asia stocks? On Market View, Willie Keng unpacks all these developments with Too Jun Cheong, Dealing Manager from Moomoo Singapore.

A businesswoman has taken her former relationship manager to court, alleging negligence in a financial transaction that went wrong.  The defense, however, argues that this is simply a matter of ‘seller’s remorse.’ It’s a case that raises bigger questions: what duty of care do financial professionals actually owe their clients?  Where does personal responsibility begin and end? And how might the courts decide where to draw the line? On The Big Story, Hongbin Jeong spoke with Adrian Wee, Managing Partner, Lighthouse Law LLC, to find out more.

Tokenization is no longer a fringe idea. It's becoming a major force in Asia’s investment landscape. From MAS’s Project Guardian connecting Singapore and UK asset managers, to billions of dollars in real-world assets being digitised regionally, institutional adoption is moving from theory to practice. This shift is opening up private markets, pre-IPO deals, and alternative assets to a wider pool of investors, while also enhancing liquidity, transparency, and efficiency in markets that were historically less accessible. For fund managers and institutional investors, tokenisation is not just a technology trend, it’s a potential game-changer in portfolio construction and capital allocation. On Wealth Tracker, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Kingsley Advani, Founder & CEO, Allocations, to find out more.

CynLr is a visual object intelligence platform that enables industrial robots to see, identify, and manipulate objects in unstructured environments. Unlike conventional robots that require extensive pre-training, CynLr’s technology allows machines to grasp, re-orient, and place objects they’ve never encountered before, providing flexibility in handling a wide variety of products. Through its CLX1 Vision Stack and CyRo robots, CynLr supports factories that need to switch between different products and tasks efficiently, a concept the company calls “Universal Factories.” By combining motion, depth, and color perception into a single system, CynLr builds detailed visual models of objects to operate effectively in complex environments. On The Right Business, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Gokul, Founder - Design, Product & Brand, CynLr, to find out more.

Singapore shares dipped today despite most Asian markets trading in the green. The Straits Times Index was down 0.22% at 4,328.85 points at 2.39pm Singapore time, with a value turnover of S$826.72M seen in the broader market. In terms of companies to watch, we have SIA Group, after the airline group yesterday reported a 5.4 per cent increase in passenger traffic for August compared with the previous year.  This increase outpaced the 2.7 per cent expansion in passenger capacity across Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Scoot.  Elsewhere, from what to watch out of flagged talks between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, to the confirmation of Trump’s pick Stephen Miran into the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee – more international headlines remained in focus.  Also on deck, how Jack Ma is reportedly back at work to ‘Make Alibaba Great Again’! On Market View, Money Matters’ finance presenter Chua Tian Tian unpacked the developments with James Cheo, Chief Investment Officer, Southeast Asia and India at HSBC Global Private Banking and Wealth.

Days of youth-led protests over corruption, joblessness, and social media curbs have forced Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli to step down. In his place, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki is now Nepal’s first female prime minister, leading an interim government until elections in March 2026. But this isn’t just about a change at the top, it’s about a new generation. Nepal’s Gen Z protesters have shown their power, toppling a leader and demanding transparency and opportunity. So what does this mean for Nepal’s democracy and its young people? On The Big Story, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Dr DB Subedi, Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies. School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, to find out more.

Gas and LNG power most of Singapore’s electricity today, but as the world pushes toward renewables, is this still a growth story or just a temporary bridge? And for investors, does gas remain an opportunity… or a risk? On Wealth Tracker, Hongbin Jeong speaks to Lu Ming Pang, Senior Analyst, Gas & LNG Research, Rystad Energy, to find out more.