:00:11. > :00:19.The State bank of India is swallowing up five smaller rivals.
:00:20. > :00:25.Will the new mega- bank be able to compete globally? And it is the
:00:26. > :00:28.final countdown, Singapore turns of its two G wireless network this
:00:29. > :00:35.weekend, rendering old phones useless. -- 2G.
:00:36. > :00:42.It's a Friday, everyone, good morning, Asia, hello, world, thanks
:00:43. > :00:48.for watching the Asia Business Report, I'm Rico Hizon. Does bigger
:00:49. > :00:50.mean better when it comes to financial institutions? This weekend
:00:51. > :00:54.five Indian banks will begin the process of merging with the State
:00:55. > :00:58.bank of India. It's already the country's largest bank but after the
:00:59. > :01:02.merger it will be one of the largest in the world. The government hopes
:01:03. > :01:04.the move will clean up the system and get banks performing again. We
:01:05. > :01:12.take a look. HSBC, Bank of China, BNP Paribas, JP
:01:13. > :01:17.Morgan Chase they are some of the largest banks in the world and now
:01:18. > :01:22.an Indian bank will be joining their ranks. The State bank of India,
:01:23. > :01:27.India's largest public sector bank, is merging with five subsidiaries.
:01:28. > :01:32.It will create a mammoth bank with 24,000 branches and 500 million
:01:33. > :01:37.customers. Now, banks are often measured by the
:01:38. > :01:42.value of their assets. This merged bank will have assets worth $550
:01:43. > :01:47.billion. To put that into perspective, the new merger will be
:01:48. > :01:52.five times bigger than India's next largest bank, and the problem in
:01:53. > :01:58.India is there's lots of small banks. Far too small to break even
:01:59. > :02:02.let alone become profitable. And for too long many have been weighed down
:02:03. > :02:10.by non-performing assets and bad loans, and this has hampered the
:02:11. > :02:13.banks' ability to loan to businesses, impacting the economy.
:02:14. > :02:17.By coming together these five smaller banks will be able to serve
:02:18. > :02:23.customers of a growing economy better, giving credit more easily
:02:24. > :02:26.while cutting costs and losses. Consolidation looks like a good
:02:27. > :02:36.option to clean up India's banking system. Samira Hashmi on the merger
:02:37. > :02:39.in India's banking industry. Australia's competition regulator
:02:40. > :02:44.will stop a group of the country's largest banks or bargaining for
:02:45. > :02:48.access to Apple's contactless payment function. It stops them
:02:49. > :02:52.introducing their own services, which could be used instead of the
:02:53. > :02:55.Apple wallet. That would have enabled banks to circumvent
:02:56. > :03:00.transaction fees and get customers to engage more frequently with their
:03:01. > :03:04.own applications. It's a move that could potentially set a global
:03:05. > :03:09.president. US President Donald Trump has given an indication of the tone
:03:10. > :03:10.he will take during his meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jingping
:03:11. > :03:15.next week. In a tweet he said the meeting would
:03:16. > :03:19.be a very difficult one because the US can no longer have massive trade
:03:20. > :03:25.deficits and job losses. He said American companies need to be
:03:26. > :03:31.prepared to look elsewhere. From defence aerospace,
:03:32. > :03:33.transportation to security, French multinational Thales designs and
:03:34. > :03:40.builds electroconvulsive systems. The company has six 4000 use and
:03:41. > :03:46.operates in 64 countries -- 64,000. It is a huge defence contractor and
:03:47. > :03:51.Asia is a growing market for it. We look at the company with Thales's
:03:52. > :03:53.chief executive. This part of the world is very
:03:54. > :04:09.dynamic. It is trend is around 5%, depending on the
:04:10. > :04:14.country, but broadly for the region. 5% in terms of growth is important
:04:15. > :04:18.in our business. You said defence spending in Asia has always been
:04:19. > :04:22.growing but do you think recent territorial disputes, like in the
:04:23. > :04:27.South China Sea, and threats from North Korea, is that helping boost
:04:28. > :04:33.defence spending even further? Generally I don't comment on
:04:34. > :04:37.political aspects, I just look at the defence element of our
:04:38. > :04:43.customers, but the geopolitical environment is not crucial to our
:04:44. > :04:49.decisions. In your Ning is you are also seeing recovery in Europe as
:04:50. > :04:56.well -- in your numbers. That is new. As you said, Europe didn't
:04:57. > :05:00.consider in the past, in the recent past, that defence of security was a
:05:01. > :05:06.priority so many of the European countries decided to have a kind of
:05:07. > :05:13.flat or even decreasing defence budget. Things have changed since
:05:14. > :05:16.2015, two years ago, Robert Lee because of the geopolitical
:05:17. > :05:25.environment, Crimea, Ukraine, but also what happened in Europe with
:05:26. > :05:31.the terrorist attacks -- probably. Overall if you take the 28 EU state
:05:32. > :05:35.members, 19 out of these 28 have decided to increase their defence
:05:36. > :05:40.budget. It is kind of a long-term trend in Europe. You said growth in
:05:41. > :05:46.Asia was about 5%, what are we talking about in Europe? Probably
:05:47. > :05:52.between 2-3%, that's our best guess, a bit little bit less than Asia but
:05:53. > :05:56.it's already much better than in the past.
:05:57. > :06:03.That's two minutes with the Thales chief executive. In other business
:06:04. > :06:07.news, Toshiba has informed the Japanese defence ministry it will
:06:08. > :06:11.keep semiconductor operations ifttt and after it sells off its memory
:06:12. > :06:18.chip business. Shareholders agreed to sell off the flash memory unit to
:06:19. > :06:21.cover losses from Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy
:06:22. > :06:27.protection on Wednesday. The company behind the biggest blunder in Oscar
:06:28. > :06:32.history, PwC, will be the accountancy service for the awards
:06:33. > :06:38.again next year. A backstage envelope mixup led to the wrong Best
:06:39. > :06:45.Picture winner being announced. Starting 2018, PwC will replace the
:06:46. > :06:49.counted in the control room to stop mistakes. Our counters will have to
:06:50. > :06:53.hand over their phones before going backstage. Remember when phones were
:06:54. > :06:58.just bricks and they were only used just bricks and they were only used
:06:59. > :07:02.for making calls and sending texts? In Singapore those phones are about
:07:03. > :07:08.to be rendered useless. Singapore will switch off it's 2G signal on
:07:09. > :07:11.the first of April and service providers say the move will be
:07:12. > :07:17.better services for people with newer phones, but they admit a few
:07:18. > :07:19.people may be caught out. Timothy McDonald has more.
:07:20. > :07:25.These chunky old devices are 2G phones, and they are a far cry from
:07:26. > :07:29.today's smart phones, they are really just made to perhaps send a
:07:30. > :07:33.text or make a voice call. Here in Singapore they are about to switch
:07:34. > :07:42.off the macro 16 will. For more we are speaking to Patrick from M1. Why
:07:43. > :07:50.are Singapore's telcos switching off the 2G signal? -- off the 2G signal.
:07:51. > :07:55.Today's customers are all Internet savvy and they utilise data, 4G is
:07:56. > :08:01.specifically designed for the efficient carriage of data and hence
:08:02. > :08:06.the time has come for us to retire the 2G network gracefully and reuse
:08:07. > :08:11.the bandwidth and spectrum for 2G for 4G. If you are a 4G customer
:08:12. > :08:15.sitting in a house, maybe on Facebook or playing a game, are you
:08:16. > :08:20.likely to see an improvement in service? Because it is a low band
:08:21. > :08:26.frequency, the penetration indoors is better. So, yes, some of the
:08:27. > :08:29.customers, especially if you're deep inside a building, you will have a
:08:30. > :08:33.better customer experience. What kind of preparation have you made to
:08:34. > :08:37.switch over people such as perhaps migrant workers or older people on
:08:38. > :08:43.2G prepaid plans or corporate customers who have legacy devices
:08:44. > :08:47.like 2G credit card machines? We started the outreach programme
:08:48. > :08:52.intensively to an Ahok years ago specifically reaching out to
:08:53. > :08:58.corporate customers that have legacy devices -- two and a half years ago.
:08:59. > :09:01.We looked at migrant workers, every weekend we had roadshows in their
:09:02. > :09:05.language in their dormitories to educate them, advise them on what
:09:06. > :09:10.was coming up and get them to convert. All three telcos have a
:09:11. > :09:15.number of low-cost close to zero smart phones available, so when they
:09:16. > :09:20.convert them, or go across to 3G or 4G, cost wise it is the same plan,
:09:21. > :09:23.same cost, so it is as easy as possible to do it. That's part of
:09:24. > :09:28.the outreach across-the-board we have done for the last two and a
:09:29. > :09:33.half years. When you hit the switch finally, any stragglers? Yes, there
:09:34. > :09:36.will be stragglers, customer service, sales and marketing,
:09:37. > :09:40.corporate sales, everyone will be geared up as we approach the first
:09:41. > :09:45.of April. Thanks, Patrick. In a few days if you have an old macro fine
:09:46. > :09:49.like this one then it might not be very good for anything but plain
:09:50. > :09:58.Snake vas an old 2G phone. I have an old 2G phone but I'm sure
:09:59. > :10:07.I can use it in other countries! -- but playing Snake -- an old 2G
:10:08. > :10:13.phone. The all Ordinaries is down by a 10th of a percent. Tokyo stocks
:10:14. > :10:16.opening higher as exporters and banks rise on a weaker yen and those
:10:17. > :10:21.solid economic growth numbers from the US. As for US equities, they
:10:22. > :10:26.rallied on the growth upgrade and oil prices rising above $50 per
:10:27. > :10:31.barrel. Bank is much for investing your time with us. I'm Hizon. Sport
:10:32. > :10:33.Today is up next to -- thank you