1 Qatar rated negative by Moody’s (Babu Das
Augustine in Gulf News) Moody’s Investors Service has changed the outlook on
Qatar’s credit rating to negative from stable and affirmed the long-term issuer
and senior unsecured debt ratings at Aa3.
The key driver for the outlook change to negative is
the economic and financial risks arising from the ongoing dispute between Qatar
and a group of countries, including its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council neighbours
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, as well as Egypt.
In Moody’s view, the likelihood of a prolonged
period of uncertainty extending into 2018 has increased, which carries the risk
that Qatar’s sovereign credit fundamentals could be negatively affected.
The coalition countries have enacted a series of
measures such as severing diplomatic relations, closing land, sea and air
links, and expelling Qatari nationals from their countries. In addition, they
have submitted a list of 13 demands as condition for removing these actions.
Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P)
was the first to take rating action on Qatar within days after the diplomatic
row erupted. The rating agency has lowered its long-term rating on the State of
Qatar to AA- from AA and placed the rating on credit watch with negative
implications.
2 Boom in fintech jobs (Yasmine Yahya in Straits
Times) Never mind numeracy skills. To work in a bank these days, a job-seeker
is better off being a designer, digital data analyst or tech developer.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore in its annual
report last week noted a net increase of 2,800 financial sector jobs last year,
despite the slowdown in financial sector growth to 0.7 per cent from 5.7 per
cent in 2015.
MAS managing director Ravi Menon noted that with
digitisation and automation gathering pace, many global financial institutions
have been downsizing and restructuring their operations, mainly in back office
functions such as operations, IT and technical support.
Banks and human resource experts said the rise of
technology has led to an increase in demand for many new positions in the
banking sector which did not previously exist, such as UX/UI designers, digital
data analysts and app developers. Management consultancy Kelly Services
estimates that IT on the whole will require between 15,000 and 30,000 more
workers by 2020.
OCBC Bank is looking to recruit more talent with
expertise in cyber security, digital and Web development and data analytics. Similarly,
DBS Bank has been looking for data scientists, UX/UI designers, app developers
and people familiar with cloud computing, agile development, development
operations and information security to support its digital initiatives.
3 Sex bots revolutionary and risky (Haroon Siddique
in The Guardian) Sex robots have the potential to provide a valuable service
for people who are elderly, disabled or who find intercourse traumatic, but
they also carry ethical risks, experts say. Sex robots that look like humans
can already be bought or leased for parties in the US, and plans for a cafe
staffed by “erotic cyborgs” in Paddington, London, have been mooted.
The authors behind the Foundation for Responsible
Robotics’ report believe they could herald a “revolution” in sex, helping
people who would otherwise find it hard to have intimate relationships. But
they also raise concerns that sex robots could increase the objectification of
women, alter perceptions of consent and be used to satisfy desires that would
otherwise be illegal.
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