Bloomberg Siam Commercial Bank Pcl, Thailand’s second-largest lender, is going digital and slashing branches and headcount in a bid to survive competition from emerging financial players. “Even though we are a large bank, we think of it as do or die,” Chief Strategy Officer Arak Sutivong said in an interview, referring to a $1 billion technology investment program and its …

Bloomberg Traders have been taking some profits on their long positions in the Norwegian krone this week, but the latest inflation data has given them a reason to rethink. Norway’s February headline inflation beat the highest analyst estimate and rose above the central bank’s recently lowered 2 percent target, triggering a rally in the currency of 0.7 percent against the …

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan stayed the course with its monetary stimulus at Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s final policy meeting before his new term begins next month. BOJ kept its yield-curve control settings and asset purchases unchanged, a result forecast by all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. And with inflation still far from the BOJ’s target, Kuroda made it clear that the …