Bloomberg A senior Chinese foreign-exchange regulatory official called for “special attention” to be paid to blockchain as the nation looks to gain advantages from digital finance. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange is looking to use blockchain and artificial intelligence in cross-border trade finance and macro-prudential regulation, Lu Lei, deputy director of the regulator, said at the Bund Summit in …

Bloomberg Weeks after Armand Wahyudi Hartono became the vice president director of Indonesia’s largest non-state bank, he noticed how staff were leaving half-empty glasses of water after work. The next morning, he restricted the amount of drinking water available at PT Bank Central Asia’s (BCA) headquarters. Such stringent cost control is just an example of how the lender has managed …

Bloomberg Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) posted its lowest quarterly profit in at least a decade as the chemical maker took an impairment charge and cheaper oil put pressure on its product prices. Net income slumped 86% from the previous year to 830 million riyals, while sales fell 23% for the same period to 33.7 billion riyals, the company known …