The omens for the Chinese yuan seemed bad heading into 2017, The Economist reported. The capital account looked as porous as ever, making a mockery of the government’s attempts to fix the leaks. The new year, when residents received fresh allowances for buying foreign currency, was due to bring even more pressure. Analysts braced for a stampede for the exits from China. The yuan had fallen sharply at the beginning of 2016, catching them by surprise. This time, they were ready. Instead, the yuan began the year as one of the world’s star performers.

Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee left the South Korean special prosecutor's office early on Friday, more than 22 hours after arriving for questioning on bribery suspicions in an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye. Lee left the special prosecution office without answering reporters' questions and headed to a waiting car.

Bank of Cyprus will discover whether investors have bought into its recovery story as it offers its first public bond since imposing losses on bondholders in 2013 during the Cypriot banking crisis, Reuters reported. The bank began marketing a 200m minimum 10-year non-call five-year Tier 2 bond at 9.5% area on Thursday morning via Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and HSBC. The transaction is expected to be rated Caa3 by Moody's. Bank of Cyprus is rated Caa2 by Moody's and B- by Fitch.

The third-generation heir of South Korea’s Samsung conglomerate is being questioned Thursday in relation to suspected bribery, prosecutors said, drawing the country’s biggest and most powerful business group deeper into an unfolding political scandal that has led to the impeachment of the president, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lee Jae-yong, the 48-year-old heir-apparent to the Samsung empire, arrived at the office of the special prosecutor on Thursday morning. The special prosecutors’ office also called on lawmakers to report Mr.

A Singapore court Wednesday sentenced a former branch manager of Switzerland’s Falcon Private Bank AG to prison for crimes connected to the alleged multibillion-dollar misappropriation at Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, The Wall Street Journal reported. Jens Sturzenegger, 42, a Swiss national who managed Falcon’s Singapore unit, was charged last week with 16 offenses under various laws, including one that requires banks and their officers to enact due-diligence checks on clients to prevent money laundering.

Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co. (ARC) Ltd is planning to file an insolvency case against Bharati Defence and Infrastructure Ltd in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to pre-empt winding-up petitions by unsecured creditors, said two people familiar with the matter, including a senior official at the ARC. Edelweiss’s move is in response to the dissolution of the Board for Industrial and Financial Restructuring, which makes Bharati vulnerable to winding-up petitions from unsecured lenders. “Under BIFR, a firm remains protected against any legal proceedings.

Chinese regulators have taken steps to ensure bitcoin is not used to facilitate capital flight, even as investors in the cryptocurrency say they doubt it is being used to transfer large amounts of cash out of China, the Financial Times reported. The apparent correlation between a depreciating renminbi and bitcoin’s price surge in recent months has prompted suspicion that the virtual asset is contributing to outflows. Bitcoin’s Chinese price rose 145 per cent in 2016, as the renminbi suffered its worst year on record, weakening 6.5 per cent.

Hong Kong's Court of Appeal on Wednesday began hearing Moody's appeal against a tribunal decision that partly upheld regulatory action imposed on it for a report on Chinese firms, in what is considered a landmark case for the financial centre. Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong said in April it would challenge a March 2016 ruling by the Securities and Futures Appeals Tribunal (SFAT) upholding the securities regulator's claim that Moody's broke rules governing how regulated firms should behave when it published the report.

The Turkish central bank failed to stop the lira’s free fall with its limited step to boost liquidity in financial markets, amid political pressure to keep interest rates low, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Turkish currency tumbled as much as 1.9% during trading in Istanbul on Tuesday, its fourth straight record low. Instead of touching interest rates, the central bank loosened foreign-currency reserve requirements by half of a percentage point, saying the measure would inject about $1.5 billion of liquidity into financial markets.

Afghanistan is cracking down on tax evasion to repair its finances as the country’s economy struggles with renewed violence and the withdrawal of the huge coalition presence that fed business for years, The Wall Street Journal reported. The departure of most foreign troops two years ago allowed the Taliban to take advantage of the security vacuum and escalate attacks on the government, hurting consumer and business confidence. Double-digit economic growth rates collapsed to almost zero a year after the withdrawal.