Bloomberg The standing of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is set to receive another boost after 13 further applicants were granted membership. The accessions will bring the total roster of member countries to 70, and leave Japan and the US as the only Group of Seven states without a stake in the lender. Memberships for Afghanistan, Armenia, ...

  Bloomberg Malaysia’s central bank said this year will be another challenging one for monetary policy as inflation pressure builds and risks loom over the economy. Gross domestic product is forecast to expand 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent this year, Bank Negara Malaysia said in its annual report in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. That compares with the government’s earlier forecast ...

  Reuters Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) is in talks with banks about a potential international bond issue that will most likely be denominated in US dollars, sources familiar with the matter said. If the deal goes ahead, CBQ would join a growing number of banks from the region tapping the international debt markets this year with the aim of ...

  Bloomberg The UK Financial Conduct Authority re-opened its investigation into Barclays Plc’s 2008 emergency fundraising from Qatar despite issuing a fine in the case four years ago, as charging decisions from a parallel criminal case are set to be announced imminently, according to a person familiar with the probe. The FCA called in a number of people for interviews ...

  Bloomberg Montblanc has become the first brand in the Richemont family of luxury companies to put out a smartwatch. The Montblanc Summit, based on Google’s Android Wear 2 platform, aims to compete with, among others, the Apple Watch and rival Swiss brand TAG Heuer’s Connected Watch (which was released last year and received a major update in the form ...

  AP Apple said purported hacking vulnerabilities disclosed by WikiLeaks this week have all been fixed in recent iPhones and Mac computers. The documents released by the anti-secrecy site Thursday morning pointed to an apparent CIA program to hack Apple devices using techniques that users couldn’t disable by resetting their devices. The iPhone hack was limited to the 3G model ...

  AP An advertising boycott of YouTube is broadening, a sign that big-spending companies doubt Google’s ability to prevent marketing campaigns from appearing alongside repugnant videos. PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores and Starbucks confirmed that they have also suspended their advertising on YouTube after the Wall Street Journal found Google’s automated programs placed their brands on five videos containing racist content. AT&T, ...

  Reuters Augmented reality may sound like something out of a science fiction film, but the technology is changing manufacturing across the world. From aerospace to automotives, AR is not only increasingly being used on the factory floor, it’s revolutionising it. AR overlays virtual reality over real objects, providing all the necessary data a technician needs to make an assessment ...

  Dubai / Reuters OPEC members have argued for decades over whether they should monitor output or exports to gauge compliance with oil-output cuts. This month, Saudi Arabia has thrown a third metric – supply – into the debate. The move saw oil prices declining, with confused traders fearing Riyadh would pump more crude, thus complicating OPEC’s efforts to reduce ...

  DUBAI / WAM The Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) issued a certificate completing the merger of the First Gulf Bank (FGB) and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD). The SCA has set March 30 as the last date for trading the respective shares of the two banks ahead of starting trading of new shares on Abu Dhabi Securities ...