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Brian McKenna In Australia it was announced in December that Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) and Henry Davis York (HDY) would merge under the NRF banner. HDY's managing partner Michael Greene is now deputy managing partner in Australia at his new firm and national head of the government practice. The move follows a similar merger for NRF recently with Chadbourne & Parke.

China has been stepping up its efforts to tighten regulations to rein in financial risks. The latest moves include strengthening lending regulation for online microloans by banning unlicensed operations and setting borrowing limits. These cash loans typically charge high interest rates and are targeted towards those with limited access to credit, poor credit history and/or who need access to funds quickly. There are over 2,500 online platforms providing short-term loans to 10 million users in China with loans in this sector totalling in excess of RMB1 trillion ($155 billion).

In the February 2018 cover story, IFLR discusses how upcoming elections in a number of Latam nations could unsettle the equity and debt capital markets

The Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) has released its latest analysis of data on non-performing loans in the Cyprus banking sector, covering the period to August 31 2017. The analysis shows aggregate non-performing facilities (NPFs) and related indicators for the domestic operations of credit institutions operating in Cyprus. During the month of August NPFs fell by €497 million ($598 million), a reduction of 2.2%, to €21.9 billion, against a backdrop of a smaller (1.1%) reduction in total facilities, from €49.5 billion to €48.9 billion, over the same period. As a result, the percentage of facilities classified as non-performing fell to 44.7% at the end of August 2017. Total impairment provisions made against NPFs totalled €10 billion as at August 31 2017, accounting for 45.9% of aggregate NPFs.

The development of communication media, especially mobile devices with internet access, has led to the appearance and rapid growth of several new types of electronic payment services. In particular, as technology advances, software applications that can be used from mobile devices have quickly developed as easy, reliable and secure platforms from which to perform payment transactions, thus increasingly gaining popularity among consumers and retailers.

There has been a marked increase in investments by Japanese investors in foreign real estate funds, but the marketing of such funds in Japan is subject to many regulations, including the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA). The following is a brief summary of the two principal regulations applicable to operators of typical foreign real estate funds, such as limited partnerships, investment trusts or real estate investment trusts (Reits) that are established under foreign laws, and which are marketed to institutional or professional investors in Japan.

A part of a company's equity, other capital funds, can be defined as funds created from the contributions provided by shareholders. They are created usually when there is a need to swiftly increase the company´s equity.

As one of Vietnam's efforts to strengthen the national banking system, which has been unstable in recent times, on November 20 2017 the National Assembly introduced a new law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2010 Law on Credit Institutions (Amended LOCI). The new law came into effect on January 15 2018.

Thailand has enjoyed a relatively stable petroleum law regime since 1971 when the Petroleum Act BE 2514, 1971 (PA) and the Petroleum Income Tax Act BE 2514, 1971 (PITA) were enacted. Thailand adopted a modern form of petroleum concession, which has been updated from time to time. There have been 20 bid rounds, the last in 2007. A number of commercial oil and gas discoveries have been made, and as of 2017, there were 38 concessions in force. However, Thailand has limited geological prospects for oil and gas, and it imports more than 40% of its natural gas requirements.

On December 19 2017, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed into law the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) which took effect on January 1 2018 and introduced Phase 1A of a massive reform of the tax system of the Philippines. A notable change is the overhaul of the tax rates on individual compensation income (see table)