The second half of 2022 was an optimistic time for Asia, particularly after the prolonged period of COVID-19-related restrictions. finews.asia's founder Claude Baumann discusses the website's increased profile and importance.
Asia, like the rest of the world, had its share of surprises in 2022, with the international dislocation in financial markets disrupting many key indices. Still, the war in Ukraine had far less of an impact than it did in Europe while the ongoing energy crisis has not been much of an issue in Singapore or Hong Kong in recent months.
The geopolitical conflict between China and the US, however, continued to simmer, particularly as it related to Taiwan and the rising number of tech sector curbs. The mainland's zero-Covid policies were also a major concern given their massive impact on business life. In the meantime, the government has scrapped them completely.
Media Partner for Asia's Largest Fintech Festival
Until the summer, continued Covid restrictions continued to make travel difficult in many Asian countries. All of a sudden that changed in the second half. Singapore, in particular, benefited from the newfound optimism when most measures were relaxed in the city-state.
The best example was this year's Singapore Fintech Festival (image above). By far Asia's largest fintech convention, it attracted 65,000 visitors this past November, including such top shots as Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Changpeng Zhao, («CZ») founder and CEO of Binance, and Melinda French Gates, industry luminary and ex-wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
finews.asia was again an official media partner of the festival and part of the «Swiss Pavilion» under the aegis of Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE).
Events are Back
Understandably, there seemed to be an almost unquenchable thirst for interpersonal exchange, something belied by the countless number of events that took place in the second half. finews.asia took advantage of the prevailing optimism to organize a panel discussion with Henley & Partners, the worldwide leading consultancy for investment migration.
The panelists discussed the issue of migration risk together with political scientist and strategy consultant Parag Khanna (pictured above, in the middle) as well as Balaji Srinivasan (second from left), the former Chief Technology Officer of Coinbase and currently a private equity investor.
finews.asia has been present in Singapore for six years and in Hong Kong for four years now. In that time the website has grown to cater to 303,000 unique users and almost 500,000 page views a month.
Since its start in 2016, it has become one of the most important information platforms for Asia's financial sector.
Strengthening the Singapore Editorial Team
Deviana Chuo (image above) fits into the current finews.asia growth story well following her appointment as editor for finews.asia in Singapore. She has extensive experience as a journalist, working as a Senior Writer for M&A with «Dealstreet Asia» and as a Senior Reporter for Southeast Asia at «Mergermarket».
Singapore as Hedge
«Singapore is back», finews.asia founder Claude Baumann clearly stated in November in an interview with fundplat.com (German only). In the interview, he indicated that the financial hub in the city-state is both optimistic and buoyant, profiting from its stability, and reliability despite the enormous geopolitical uncertainties in the world.
«We want to participate in this trend more than ever. Singapore is a kind of hedge for us should the environment in Europe become more difficult», he indicated.
