Daily Briefing: Alibaba's Singapore arm partners with Uber, Netflix; GIC, Mapletree boost student-housing acquisitions

And here are the four most in-demand skills in the finance sector.

From Bloomberg via Yahoo!: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has created a loyalty program for online shoppers in Singapore that it may expand to other markets, teaming up with Uber Technologies Inc. and Netflix Inc. to lure customers. It’s the first time Uber and Netflix have jointly created an online rewards program, said Maximilian Bittner, chief executive officer of Lazada Group SA, the Singapore-based e-commerce operator Alibaba acquired for $1b in 2016. The trio’s “LiveUp” program starts Thursday and links their services, from UberEats and Netflix to online grocer RedMart and Alibaba’s Taobao online marketplace.

From Bloomberg via Yahoo!: Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and the city-state-based real estate investor helped fuel a record US$16.2b of student-housing acquisitions last year, and a further US$3.3b of deals were struck in the first quarter of 2017, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc. Student accommodation offers better returns than offices and residential housing, making it an attractive asset for pension and sovereign wealth funds looking for stable income and higher yields in a low-return world.

From Dollars and Sense via Yahoo!: With Singapore being a financial hub in the region and the industry continuing to enjoy a prestigious label, people here still want to find jobs in banks and finance-related firms. And if you want to differentiate yourself from the thousands of hopefuls out there, you need to be able to offer your employers some relevant skills that others may not have