Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Lazada Group is creating a new role to lead payments in Southeast Asia for the first time, and tapped a former Alipay executive for the position. Dayong Zhang, former general manager of Southeast Asia for Ant Group Co’s Alipay, will become Lazada’s head of payments, the company said, confirming a report by Bloomberg News. The ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong could have a hard time attracting blank check companies after it proposed a high threshold to list in the city. In a consultation paper, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd proposed that special purpose acquisition companies would need to raise at least HK$1 billion ($128 million) when listing and that retail investors would be barred from participating. ...

Bloomberg France isn’t the only country upset about a new security pact between the US, UK and Australia: Some Southeast Asian nations are also worried the partnership could provoke China and spur a regional arms race. The so-called Aukus partnership, which will help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, prompted China last week to warn of an arms race in a region ...