Daily Briefing: Singapore banks' slide into boredom; Retail market: the disease and the cure

And Frasers Hospitality plans to launch 10 more properties in China.

Are Singapore's banks turning boring again? Probably, yes. Are they making the slide into tedium worthwhile for shareholders? Maybe not. Before the onset of the subprime crisis in the U.S., the three homegrown Singapore lenders -- DBS, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. and United Overseas Bank -- used to earn a humdrum 13 percent return on equity, compared with of 25 percent for large banks in Hong Kong, 20 percent in Australia and 19 percent in the U.K. Read more here.

The Department of Statistics Singapore released the February 2016 Retail Sales Index figures two weeks ago. The data shows that year-on-year, total retail sales value fell 3.2% from an estimated $3.5 billion in February 2015. The decline would have been bigger if not for the sales of motor vehicles, which increased 51% over February last year. Find out more here.

Frasers Hospitality has unveiled plans to launch 10 more properties in China, following the opening of Fraser Place Tianjin by Mr Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s Minister for National Development. The plans include key cities in Tianjin, Wuxi, Chengdu, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and new market launches in Nanchang, Dalian and Changsha. Read more here.