Mumbai Facelift Is Inspired by 200-Year-Old New York Blueprint
Citylab
Indian officials are spending billions to revamp the country's financial capital and subpar infrastructure.
Mumbai doesn't necessarily look the part of a major financial capital.
India's seaside metropolis is riddled with torn-up roads. Monsoon flooding inundates areas near the stock exchanges and transforms even the ritziest neighborhoods into lakes. And traffic is so extreme that Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person, sometimes commutes to work on a helicopter, dodging half-finished skyscrapers and a mishmash of construction projects.
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Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Japan ruling party's election loss is in the price, investors say
By Vidya Ranganathan SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Japan's upper house election on Sunday dealt a big blow to the ruling coalition and sets markets up for possible policy paralysis and a bigger fiscal deficit, much of which is already priced in, analysts said. Exit polls after Sunday's election showed the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is likely to lose control of the upper house, thus making it a minority in both chambers of the government. Japanese markets are closed on Monday for a holiday, so the yen may be where investors get their first inkling of any disruption from the election outcome. The Japanese currency has already weakened considerably this year on expectations of changes to taxes and a bigger fiscal deficit. The election result, while not entirely a shock to markets, also comes at a tricky time for a country trying to get a tariff deal with U.S. President Donald Trump before an Aug. 1 deadline. Japanese government bonds (JGBs) plunged last week, sending yields on 30-year debt to an all-time high, while the yen slid to multi-month lows against the U.S. dollar and the euro. "I will not chase the coalition loss trades, and I suspect participants will spend some time analyzing the implications of the loss, which could take time to materialize, and also refocus attention to the trade negotiations which is another major macro risk for Japan," said Rong Ren Goh, a portfolio manager in the fixed income team at Eastspring Investments. Investors expect it will be a while before it becomes clear whether the ruling coalition intends to continue as a minority government, or draw in a new partner. Among the most likely candidates is the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), which has urged the Bank of Japan to reverse course and again loosen monetary policy. Investors are bracing for the LDP to compromise heavily to accommodate opposition parties' desire for tax cuts. Ishiba's fate also remains an unknown, although he said on Sunday he intends to stay in his position. Within the LDP, a leading candidate to replace Ishiba, should he step down, is Abenomics proponent Sanae Takaichi, who has advocated for a resumption of monetary easing by the BOJ. All three leading opposition parties back some form of consumption tax cuts, with the populist, right-wing Sanseito proposing a phase-out of VAT altogether. Those cuts would have to be paid for with increased Japanese government bond issuance. With debt about 2-1/2 times GDP, Japan is already the world's most indebted major country. "Preliminary tallies indicate that the Liberal Democratic Party–Komeito coalition will retain office only as a minority government," Shoki Omori, chief desk strategist at Mizuho Securities in Japan, said in a note. Omori also does not expect the LDP to force a leadership change, particularly while trade talks with the U.S. government are ongoing. "Against that political backdrop, prospects for an aggressive fiscal stimulus are limited....A meaningful supplementary budget, if one emerges, would not be debated until the autumn Diet session at the earliest," he wrote. If Ishiba resigns, the political uncertainty could be a trigger for foreign investors to sell Japanese shares and the yen, analysts said. Barclays analysts estimate a five percentage point cut to Japan's sales tax, currently at 10%, would lead to a 15-20 basis point increase in the 30-year yield. Japanese government 30-year yields are up 80 basis points (bps) this year and the yield curve is at its steepest in years, with the spread between 10-year and 30-year bonds above 150 bps. The yen has had a volatile first half of 2025 in a range of 140-160 per dollar. It rallied hard after the Bank of Japan's rate rise in January stoked expectations for a faster pace of monetary tightening, but has dithered since late April on political uncertainty, fractious tariff negotiations with the Donald Trump administration and the BOJ's dovishness. Long speculative positions in the yen are however still very large, making it likely that the currency will fall rapidly if Japan calls for a snap election or fiscal policy is loosened. The Nikkei 225 benchmark, by contrast, is up more than 11% since April 2, when Trump unveiled his global tariffs. (Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
6 minutes ago
- Forbes
JP Morgan Chase Have A Point, But The Whole Economy Needs Data To Flow
INDIA - 2025/07/14: In this photo illustration, a JPMorgan logo is seen displayed on a smartphone ... More with a JPMorgan Chase Co logo in the background. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) The not entirely unexpected news that JP Morgan Chase intends to start charging for customers' data that is obtained by third parties through APIs, data that is provided free through 'open banking' in other parts of the world, is causing significant comment across the fintech sector. Data Needs A Business Model The planned charges would affect how fintech platforms access information through intermediaries, particularly data aggregators like Plaid and MX. who provide the infrastructure layer that sits between banks and third parties. As Jason Mikula pointed out, if these aggregators are forced to begin paying banks on a per data access basis, those costs will inevitably be passed along to aggregators' fintech customers, and, presumably, those fintechs' end users. This may make some of the services unviable, which will in turn reshape the market in a couple of ways: For the economy as a whole to benefit we therefore need to find a compromise that would allow the banks to earn a reasonable return on the data but also benefit the wider economy. In other jurisdictions, that compromise takes the essential form of 'basic and 'premium' services., which seems a reasonable way of working, so my high-level view is that there should be a standard model put in place to encourage the use of bank data for the greater good while providing balanced rewards. Using the language of cards, this means resolving interchange and liability. In other words, who gets paid what when things work properly and who compensates whom when things go wrong. It seems to me that it should hardly beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to find appropriate solutions. For example, the regulators might decide that the banks will earn zero interchange on basic facts about the account holder but they can earn whatever interchange they set for other premium services that they want to provide (an example might be giving a 'safe to spend' limit for the purposes of regulated gambling). In return for fees, the banks will also have to accept liability. I would need to defer to someone like Tom Brown, but I would've thought it might be possible to construct a solution that is based on transactional but not contingent liabilities. In other words if I give you a loan because I think you have an account with a certain amount of money in it and it later turns out that it wasn't you then the bank should be liable to the value of the loan but not beyond it. Identity is the new... well, you know. Open Banking, Open Data There is, however, another aspect beyond such "interchange fees' where I do actually feel the banks have a reasonable complaint and that is symmetry. The banks argue with complete justification that open banking does not create a level playing field for competition if they are required by law to provide basic customer data for nothing whereas third parties are not. They would argue that if they have to provide customer data to a social media company, for example, then the social media company should provide social graph data to the bank. (This is an argument that's been raging for years in Europe and the example of the Consumer Data Right in Australia shows one way forward here.) Taking all of this together, I think the principle of banks being allowed to charge something for customer data is sound provided it is within a framework set by the regulators to maximise the net welfare and not to maximise the profits of commercial banks. The fact is that allowing customer data to flow, under an equitable arrangement, is good not only for banks and fintechs but for society as a whole. Open Data And Open Minds This is not only about open banking data. There is another, bigger picture here. In a paper on "The Data Economy: Market Size and Global Trade" for the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (part of the UK's National Institute of Economic and Social Research), Diane Coyle and Wendy Li wrote about the "data gap" between global Big Tech and potential competitors, disruptors and innovators. They argue (convincingly) that this data gap is a a barrier to entry that affects not only businesses but also aggregate innovation, investment and trade. Similarly, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR, a prominent think tank) published a call for action on "Defending Europe's Economic Sovereignty" in which it called for the EU (and the UK) not to put up barriers at all but to agree data free-flow with the US. Coule and Li conclude that an open data-sharing ecosystem will increase productivity and therefore economic wellbeing. From my inexpert perspective, I could not agree more, so if I were the CEO of a US bank, I might therefore be tempted to play a longer game. I would go to the industry and say something like the... I know this sounds radical, but I hope that US regulators will, in time, choose this path, a path that grows the pie while ensuring that everyone, including banks, gets a fair slice.
Forbes
6 minutes ago
- Forbes
OmegaPro Operators Charged Over $650 Million Investment Scam
Under the electronic board showing the Nikkei index and the US-Japan exchange rate, currency dealers ... More wait for their clients' orders at Ueda Harlow, a foreign exchange trading company in Tokyo Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama) Many people are probably not familiar with forex trading. Forex trading is the name of the very speculative investment of trading foreign currencies. Forex traders base their investments on expected price movements of currencies, economic indicators, the political climate and technical analysis. It is not for the faint hearted. The forex market is the largest financial market in the world with more than $7.5 trillion traded daily It is not an investment for inexperienced investors and while it certainly is legal, there have been many investment scams involving forex trading. Recently, Michael Shannon Sims and Juan Carlos Reynoso were charged with wire fraud and money laundering related to the activities of their company OmegaPro. According to the indictment, Sims and Reynoso operated OmegaPro between 2019 and 2023 posing as a legitimate investment platform in which they promised their investors returns of up to 300% in 16 months through elite forex trading. Ultimately, according to the Justice Department, Sims and Reynoso swindled their victims out of more than 650 million dollars. The indictment indicates alleges Sims and Reynoso lured their victims into investing with them by hosting lavish promotional events throughout the world, including projecting their OmegaPro logo on to the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world during a promotional event in Dubai. Sims and Reynoso also projected a wildly successful lifestyle on social media displaying expensive vacations, cars, designer clothes and watches to convince potential investors of their credibility. The unfortunate truth is that no trading actually occurred. Rather, OmegaPro operated as a Ponzi scheme paying off earlier investors with funds derived from later investors while, according to the Justice Department, Sims and Reynoso stole the investors' money to fund the lifestyle they showed so vividly on social media. In addition, not satisfied with operating a phony investment firm, Sims and Reynoso are accused of operating OmegaPro as a pyramid scheme in which their "investors" would earn payments for bringing in new investor-victims into the scam. The more money their investors brought in, the greater the payments they received. Eventually, the scam collapsed, as most Ponzi schemes do, under its own weight and in 2023, investors were told that the company had been hacked, but that OmegaPro was transferring the investments to another platform called Broker Group, however, despite representations that the funds of investors were safe, the victims of the scam were unable to access either their accounts at OmegaPro or their supposed new accounts at BrokerGroup. On July 8, 2025 indictments against both Michael Shannon Sims and Juan Carolos Reynoso were unsealed in the federal court for the District of Puerto Rico charging both men with wire fraud and money laundering. Each man faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each charge. According to Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, 'As alleged, the defendants preyed upon vulnerable individuals in the U.S. and abroad, defrauding them of over $650 million by making false promises of substantial returns and that their money was safe.' There are a number of lessons all investors should take from this case. No one should ever invest in anything they don't understand. Forex investing is risky and complicated and should not be done unless you are knowledgeable about trading in foreign currencies. Due diligence, for anyone considering investing in a company that does forex trading should include reading reviews of the investment company on sites such as Trustpilot and Forex Peace Army. In addition, before investing with anyone, you should also investigate the person offering to sell you the investment with FINRA's Broker Check. This will tell you if the broker is licensed and if there have been disciplinary procedures against him or her. You can also check with your own state's securities regulation office for similar information. Many investment advisers will not be required to register with the SEC, but are required to register with your individual state securities regulators. You can find your state's agency by going to the website of the North American Securities Administrators Association. If investors had done their due diligence and looked into the backgrounds of Michael Shannon Sims and Juan Carlos Reynoso they would have learned that neither of them had any professional investment licenses, broker-dealer registrations or forex trading certifications and avoided being a victim of this investment scam.
