Daily Briefing: SGX expands stock research unit; Singapore to add 50,000 biking spaces by 2020

And a startup working on a crop of robotic financial advisors just received US$5.3m.

From Bloomberg Finance:

Amidst reduced company coverages caused by changes in the MiFID II, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) has extended its in-house stock research unit that writes up reports on the firms listed on its venues.

"It’s expanded an in-house team dedicated to producing reports on firms listed on its venues, Chan Kum Kong, head of research and products, said in an interview. On top of two existing writers, nine members have been added to the team that was set up in 2016. The research group covers about 200 small and mid-cap stocks. Whilst other exchanges pay to ensure there’s research on their public companies, it's unusual to have staff assigned to write reports.

Spending in the US$5b investment research industry is estimated to fall by as much as 30% as a result of new European rules, according to management consultancy Oliver Wyman. Reduced coverage may mean less volume, a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis said, a concern for SGX which makes money from trading fees. The company says the research push doesn’t clash with its role as market regulator."

Read more here.

From Tech in Asia:

Robo-advisor developer StashAway raised US$5.3m in its series A round, bringing its total raised capital to US$8.4m across three funding rounds.

"With lower fees than banks and fund managers, these robo-advisors reckon they can make more money for their users than their offline competitors. But the more pressing question for them and their backers is, how can they can make money for themselves while operating with razor-thin margins?

One of this new crop of robo-advisors, StashAway, announced today that it has raised US$5.3m in its series A round. Most of the investors were not disclosed, though the startup said that a group of family offices – including previous backers the Rozario family – and one new investor participated in the round.

This latest injection of capital brings StashAway’s total funding to date to US$8.4m across three funding rounds."

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

Singapore aims to add 50,000 bicycle parking spaces to the current 170,000 spread across the island and put them near homes and key facilities by 2020.

"This was revealed in parliament yesterday by Senior Minister of State for Transport Dr Lam Pin Min. Under the new law, bike-sharing operators are required to share their data with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to help identify areas where more parking spaces are needed.

Lam noted that over 99% of public housing and 90% of private properties are already within a five-minute walk to bicycle parking areas. Over 80% of what are deemed key destinations, like community centres, schools, polyclinics and town centres are also near such parking areas."

Read more here.