Daily Briefing: Singapore stocks rallied to one-week high amidst OCBC's profit climb reveal; SIA to fly directly to Seattle by September 2019

And minister says Grab won't be banned in Malaysia.

From Reuters:

Singapore shares jumped to a one-week high on 1 November as lenders rallied after OCBC posted a record quarterly profit, whilst other markets in the region were subdued.

Shares ended 1.4% after lender OCBC reported a 12% rise in quarterly profit, helped by higher net interest income and a decline in allowances for bad debts.

Shares of OCBC closed 3.8% higher whilst rival DBS, the largest lender in Southeast Asia, rose 2.1% to a one-week high.

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From Yahoo! News Singapore:

Singapore Airlines (SIA) revealed that it will fly non-stop flights from Singapore to Seattle from 3 September 2019.

The non-stop Singapore-Seattle flights will initially fly three times per week, with one more weekly flight to be added in October 2019. There will be 42 business class, 24 premium economy class and 187 economy class seats on board the Airbus A350-900 aircraft serving the route.

All Seattle-bound flights will depart at 9.25am (Singapore time) and arrive at 9.05am (Seattle time) on the same day, while Singapore-bound flights will depart at 10.40am and arrive at 5.30pm (Singapore time) the following day.

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From Deal Street Asia:

Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke said that the government will not kill Grab's operation in the country despite protests by local taxi drivers against the startup.

"Our purpose is to encourage taxi drivers to use e-hailing applications, whether it is from Grab or other companies, (we should) not focus on Grab only as there are 20 to 30 e-hailing companies in the country, there are many more options,” he said during a Parliament session.

Unhappy local taxi drivers had protested against the Malaysian finance ministry, following reports that the government may work with Grab to replace feeder buses to provide last-mile transport services at Mass Rapid Transit stations in Kuala Lumpur.

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