Seoul / AFP South Korea’s Samsung announced the launch of its mobile payment service in China, where it is likely to struggle in an already crowded market that arch-rival Apple entered nearly six weeks ago. The world’s second largest economy is also the world’s biggest smartphone market, and Samsung Pay has a powerful partner in China — bank card provider …

MANILA / AP Softer growth prospects for China and a weak recovery in major industrial economies are expected to push down economic growth in developing Asia to 5.7 percent this year and next, below projections, the Asian Development Bank said on Wednesday. The gross domestic product of the region, made up of 45 countries, grew 5.9 percent in 2015. China’s …

Bloomberg Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju Yeol warned on Wednesday that economic growth for 2016 is poised to fall below 3 percent and said the impact of further interest-rate cuts may be limited. The comments come amid a change in the BOK’s board and speculation of additional rate cuts given the ruling party’s request for the bank to …

Bloomberg National Bank of Kenya Ltd. placed Managing Director Munir Ahmed on compulsory leave pending an internal audit, a day after dismissing speculation on social media that he’d been fired. Five top managers were also sent on leave, the Nairobi-based lender said in an e-mailed statement. The board appointed Wilfred Musau as acting-chief executive officer, it said. “The aforementioned actions …

JOHANNESBURG / Reuters South African lender Capitec Bank Holdings reported a 26 percent rise in full-year profit on Wednesday, in line with forecast, as growth in client numbers boosted both interest and transaction fee income. Capitec, which grants loans not supported by assets, said it gained 1 million active clients, to total 7.3 million customers, over the past year as …

Frankfurt / Reuters The European Central Bank (ECB) will not move interest rates into absurdly negative territory and negative rates are not the bank’s main policy instrument even if further cuts cannot be ruled out, Executive Board Member Benoit Coeure told a political magazine. Although negative rates could reduce banks’ profitability, lenders actually increased their interest margins last year when …

Bloomberg India’s most reliable source of foreign funding is under threat. Remittances fell to $15.8 billion last quarter, the lowest since April-June 2011 and a 9.4 percent drop from a year earlier, as the global slowdown and slumping oil prices reduce demand for foreign workers. Indians working abroad — from construction labourers in Dubai to Silicon Valley engineers — send …

Bloomberg The promise of Africa’s biggest economy has turned to peril. Companies drawn to Nigeria by the prospect of a population bigger than Germany and Turkey’s combined are retreating; those staying have publicly criticized the president, a military strongman in the 1980s who came back to power via an election last year; and foreign investors are pulling their money out. …

Bloomberg For more than a century, Dawson Singletary’s family has grown tobacco, peanuts and cotton on a 530-acre farm amid the coastal flatlands of North Carolina. Now he’s making money from a different crop: solar panels. Singletary has leased 34 acres of his Bladen County farm to Strata Solar LLC for a 7-megawatt array, part of a growing wave of …

Emirates Business Product volumes from the Marketing segment of Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) grew by 10% in 2015, the company has revealed at its Annual Marketing Conference 2016. “The ENOC Marketing portfolio includes a diverse portfolio of products and services, reaching customers within a variety of sectors like aviation, automotive, industry and even individual households,” said H.E. Saif Humaid …