Confidence among APAC accountants is up in Q2

- Confidence in Asia Pacific is now meaningfully above average after a sharp Q2 recovery, but it remains weak in North America and Western Europe.

- Economic pressures returned as the top risk priority among accountants in Q2 (22%), ahead of geopolitical instability (20%) and cybersecurity (14%).

Seven in 10 (72%) respondents expect inflation in their country to increase over the next three months.

Confidence among Asia-Pacific accountants and finance professionals rebounded sharply in Q226, according to the latest ACCA and IMA Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS), reversing a Q1 decline and pushing the region's confidence and New Orders indices above their historical averages. This is a stronger recovery than seen in North America and Western Europe, where confidence remains weak by historical standards.

The fallout from the Middle East conflict continues to impact the results the survey, which was conducted between 3 and 17 June, before the renewed fighting and resumption of the US naval blockade.

While the region is very exposed to developments in the Middle East, hopes of a potential resolution of the conflict and the relative resilience of the global economy have likely been factors boosting sentiment, as well as the global AI boom, of which the region’s exporters are major beneficiaries.

Over three-quarters of accountants globally reported increased operating costs in Q2 – above the previous record set in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – amid soaring commodity prices and supply chain disruptions resulting from the conflict. Over eight in 10 (83%) CFOs globally experienced increased costs, following a record-breaking rise of over 20 percentage points from Q1. This is close to series peaks recorded in 2022 and 2023.

Cost pressures also rose in the Asia-Pacific region, with the proportion of respondents reporting increased costs jumping nine percentage points to 66% in Q2, well above the survey's historical average. However, this remains notably less severe than in Western Europe (83%) and North America (74%), where cost pressures are close to record highs.

Despite soaring costs, there was some recovery in confidence among accountants globally in Q2, from what was close to a record low in Q1. While they remain quite downbeat by historical standards, the improvement likely reflects the relative resilience of the global economy and signs at the time of the survey of movement towards a potential resolution of the conflict, which may have reduced fears of worst-case scenarios.

That said, globally declines in the Global New Orders, Capital Expenditure and Employment indices point to some slowing in global growth, likely reflecting headwinds from increased private sector caution, rising inflation, and tighter-than-expected monetary policy, although they do not appear to be signalling a major economic slowdown.

Economic pressures returned as accountants' top risk priority in Q226 (22%), ahead of geopolitical instability (20%) and cybersecurity (14%). Respondents described how understanding today's risk landscape extends beyond traditional economic cycle management, pointing to the converging effects of prolonged wars, rising cybercrime and policy uncertainty. AI featured prominently, with comments focusing on sustainable value, cyber resilience and accountability.

Survey respondents in Singapore echoed these concerns. A Singapore CFO in professional services said: "The inability of economic analysts to forecast the future, and the reaction time of the government when dealing with unforeseen economic shocks are underestimated economic risks."

Another Singapore respondent added: "Increasing operating costs will result in many small businesses going out of business and demand for professional services will accordingly continue to decline."

Alain Mulder, Senior Director, Europe Operations & Global Special Projects at IMA said: "The AI boom is providing major support to the global economy and financial markets, but developments in the Middle East over coming months will be crucial. If progress can be made in resolving the conflict, that would clearly be supportive for global growth as we progress through the second half of 2026. But downside risks would quickly build if there were a return to major hostilities and surge in energy prices."

Jonathan Ashworth, Chief Economist, ACCA said: "Sharply rising costs were unsurprisingly a major issue for firms in Q2. If they increasingly try to pass these on to the consumer, this would significantly raise the risk of policy tightening by the world’s major central banks. That said, policymakers will be hoping for favourable developments on the diplomatic front, and a return of oil prices to around pre-crisis levels, potentially allowing them to sit on their hands for the rest of 2026."

Ashworth concluded: "Despite some improvement in confidence, accountants globally remain very cautious, likely in part reflecting the uncertain and unpredictable operating environment which has become the 'new normal' in recent years."

Details

Read the GECS Q2 2026 report at https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/professional-insights/global-economics/gecs-q2-2026.html

One in five computers in Singapore encountered malware in Q216

Source: Microsoft website. Graphic for the SIR page.

Findings from the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR), Volume 21, show that one in five computers in Singapore running Microsoft real-time security products reported a malware encounter in Q216.

The Microsoft SIR is a twice-yearly report that provides unique insights into the threat landscape to help organisations learn about trend data in industry vulnerabilities, exploits, malware and web-based attacks. The latest report also identified Asia Pacific markets, especially the emerging ones, as among those at the highest risk of cybersecurity threats with three out of the top five global spots for rate of malware encounters in the region. Volume 21 covers threat data from 1H16, based on analysis of threat information from over a billion systems worldwide. Also included are longer term trend data and detailed threat profiles for over 100 individual markets and regions.

Singapore, as with markets in Asia Pacific with higher levels of IT maturity such as Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, displayed malware encounter rates that are below the worldwide average. In particular, malware encounter rates in Singapore during Q216 stood at 19.4%, almost two percentage points lower than the worldwide average.

When compared with countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia, where the malware encounter rate is more than 45% in Q216, these numbers highlighted the diverse cybersecurity landscape in the region. With a malware encounter rate that is more than double the worldwide average of over 21% during the same period, Vietnam and Indonesia are also among the top five locations across the globe most at risk of infection.

Some of the key regional and Singapore findings from the Microsoft SIR, Volume 21 include:

The top markets in the Asia Pacific under threat from malware are:

• Mongolia
• Vietnam
• Pakistan 
• Indonesia
• Nepal and Bangladesh

The most-encountered malicious software categories in Singapore include:

• Trojans, the most common type of malware that relies on the user to run them on your PC by mistake, or to visit a malicious web page.
• Worms, a type of malware that spreads by copying themselves to other PCs through a PC network by exploiting security vulnerabilities.
• Downloaders and droppers, a type of malware that installs other malicious files, including malware, onto the PC. It can download the files from a remote PC or install them directly from code that is included in its own file.

The report showed that the top most encountered malicious software families in Singapore include:

• Dynamer, a Trojan which can steal personal information, download more malware or give hackers access to computers.
• Spursint, a Trojan which can steal personal information, download more malware or give hackers access to computers.
• Xadupi, a Trojan that is often installed by Sasquor or Suptab under the name WinZipper, QkSee or both, posing as a useful application but which silently downloads and installs other malware.

Keshav Dhakad, Regional Director, Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), Microsoft Asia, said, “With increasing malware encounters and sophistication of cyberattacks, cybersecurity is becoming a mission critical priority for most organisations. It generally takes an average up to 200 days for organisations to find out that they have been breached. With no sign of abatement in the future, what companies need is a secure modern enterprise posture, which involves well-integrated 'Protect-Detect-Respond' investments and capabilities, with a strategic focus on the core pillars – identity, apps, data, infrastructure and devices.

"Additionally, organisations should also strongly consider adopting trusted cloud-based services to enjoy the highest levels of data protection, leveraging the cloud provider’s enterprise-grade security and privacy expertise, assurances and certifications.”

Security teams should also keep abreast of changes in the threat landscape brought about by the emergence of cloud computing. The latest report contains an expanded Featured Intelligence section that includes a deep dive section titled Protecting cloud infrastructure: detecting and mitigating threats using Azure Security Center. This section details new threats that organisations may encounter and explains how they can use Azure Security Center to protect, detect, and respond to security threats against Azure cloud-based resources.

Some of the new cloud-targeted threats outlined are:

• Pivot back attacks, which occur when an attacker compromises a public cloud resource to obtain information that they then use to attack the resource provider’s on-premises environment
• 'Man in the cloud' attacks, in which an attacker induces a prospective victim to install a piece of malware using a typical mechanism, such as an email with a link to a malicious website. It then switches out the user’s cloud storage synchronisation token with the attacker’s token, allowing the attacker to receive copies of each file the user places in cloud storage. This effectively makes the attacker a 'man in the middle' for cloud storage.
• Side-channel attacks, where an attacker attempts to put a virtual machine on the same physical server as the intended victim. If he succeeds, the attacker will be able to launch local attacks against the victim. These attacks might include local distributed denial of service (DDoS), network sniffing, and man-in-the-middle attacks, all of which can be used to extract information.
• Resource ransom, where attackers hold cloud resource hostage by breaking into and controlling public cloud account, and then requiring the victim to pay a ransom to release encrypted or restricted resources.

Organisations need to ensure they have a robust cybersecurity posture to withstand and respond effectively to most cyberattacks and malware infections. Five best practices for improving defence against cybersecurity threats are:

1. Use only genuine, current and updated software. The usage of IT assets which are old, unprotected, or are non-genuine in nature, substantially increase the chances for a cyberattack. For example, pirated and counterfeit software are known to come with embedded malware infections.
2. Poor cyber hygiene of IT users, negligent employee behaviour or weak credentials/password protection within an organisation, adds a high degree of vulnerability for system compromise. With more and more personal devices being used at the workplace, the higher the chance they are infected.
3. Develop a big data analytics culture involving data classification, multifactor authentication, encryption, rights management, machine learning for behavioural analytics and log analytics to spot user anomalies and irregular or suspicious patterns, which could provide potential clues in advance to prevent impending or ongoing security breaches.
4. Invest in trusted security solutions and modern threat protection technologies to monitor, detect and remove common and advanced cyber threats in real time, while developing in-house expertise to undertake threat analytics.
5. Be comprehensive on all aspects of cybersecurity, not just technology. Have a IT trusted supply chain across cloud, software, hardware, Internet of Things, BYOD (bring your own device) and regularly review and assess cybersecurity investments and performance of both software and hardware deployment, including customer and vendor access to the corporate network.

Interested?

Download the Microsoft SIR, Volume 21 report

Mobile-optimised sites get more sales: Criteo

Source: Criteo website, Q2 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report.

Criteo, the performance marketing technology provider, has released its Q2 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report. The report highlights that mobile devices are now responsible for 34% of global e-commerce transactions, while m-commerce accounted for 27% of all e-commerce transactions in Southeast Asia, putting the region at a similar level to Spain and Italy, and right behind the US.

The report also reveals that globally, more than 40% of e-commerce transactions now involve multiple devices. Smartphones, desktops and tablets are used in a variety of combinations to research and make purchasing decisions.

“Consumer adoption of mobile continues to be the biggest trend in both e-commerce and advertising today, and the pace of growth is astounding,” said Jonathan Wolf, Chief Product Officer, Criteo. “Marketers’ ability to leverage new technologies to accurately identify and reach consumers wherever they are is going to become critical, as this trend perpetuates and carries us toward a world where the majority of transactions will take place across multiple devices.”

“Southeast Asia is currently the fastest-growing region globally, with mobile being a key driver, especially in developing markets like Indonesia and India,” said Yuko Saito, Managing Director, Criteo Southeast Asia. “These developing markets are ‘mobile-first’ – most consumers will own smartphones before they own desktops, with potential for further growth as smartphone penetration continues to increase.

“For mature markets like Singapore and Taiwan, there’s a higher incidence of cross-device usage. But overall, for both developing and mature markets, mobile optimisation is crucial for e-commerce businesses looking to engage the region’s growing smartphone population.”

The findings in this report are based on Criteo’s analysis of 1.4 billion individual e-commerce transactions totalling over US$160 billion of annual sales globally. 

Additional takeaways include:

· Southeast Asia is set to follow the trends in the US – mobile-optimised sites experience more than double the conversion rate of non-optimised sites, where only 1.6% of consumers convert; mobile apps experience higher conversion rates than mobile browsers or desktops, accounting for half of mobile transactions for e-commerce players who invested in an app experience.

· Whereas mobile transactions in Southeast Asia now account for 27% of all e-commerce transactions, Indonesia stands at 34%, Taiwan at 31% and Singapore at 29%. More than half of all online sales in Japan and South Korea come from people who buy via mobile devices. Globally, mobile transactions are expected to reach 40% by the end of 2015. 

· Leading the charge are the fashion, luxury and travel verticals, with one in three transactions now on mobile devices.

“The customer purchase journey has become increasingly complex as consumers stop using a single device to make their purchases,” said Wolf. “Delivering engaging app experiences and connecting seamlessly with consumers across multiple devices are key to capturing e-commerce sales in this new world.”

Interested?

Download Criteo’s Q2 2015 State Of Mobile Commerce Report. 

Malaysia and Japan lead positive commercial property outlook going forward

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has shown in the Q2 2014 RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor, that the Occupier Sentiment Index (OSI) for Hong Kong's commercial property market remains negative for the fourth consecutive quarter. 

Occupier demand continued to fall with the retail segment losing significant momentum, although office and industrial occupier demand remained stable. With falling tenant demand and rising supply, rent value expectations at the three month time horizon have turned more negative. 

Investment sentiment, as reflected by the Investment Sentiment Index (ISI), also remained in negative territory in Q2. RICS believes the growth trajectory is likely to continue to be bumpy in the second half as the global recovery will probably remain tepid, affecting the commercial property sector accordingly.

RICS Senior Economist Andy Wu, said: "In Hong Kong, rents in the central business district continued to struggle to show any significant growth in the second quarter, given a lacklustre employment market in the financial services sector and rising levels of available rental stock in the decentralised business districts. Our survey results also indicate that investors are still somewhat hesitant towards making a commitment in the commercial property and we expect the trend to continue for the time being."

Recent data indicates the short-term economic outlook for Singapore continues to to be relatively sluggish as well. Although the OSI remains in positive territory, it declined in Q2. Similarly, the ISI edged down over the quarter. 

Wu observed that there are signs that economic uncertainty is starting to affect the commercial property sector in Singapore. "We believe in the short term real estate activity will remain relatively depressed due to ongoing economic challenges. That said, the fundamentals of the city state's real estate market still look positive for the medium to long term as Singapore could continue to emerge stronger through a high level of transparency and a business-friendly set of policies."

China is not looking favourable either, with the OSI and ISI falling into negative territory for the first time since 2009. "The biggest threat to China, other than headwinds from a recurrence of tighter credit conditions, is the apparent oversupply of offices and retail space which will strain current rental values and prices during a period of fading interest from businesses and investors," said Wu. 

"We believe investment levels and transaction volumes will likely continue to be depressed through the reminder of the year. Nevertheless, acceleration of government reforms and measures aimed at stimulating the economy should offset some of the adverse market forces."

In contrast, Malaysia's OSI increased notably since Q1, climbing firmly into positive territory. In addition, the ISI has also turned positive for the first time since mid-2013, partly driven by domestic demand and growth in export. 

The OSI and ISI in Japan also continued upward, with both indicators posting another strong reading and remaining positive for the 12th consecutive quarter. Buoyant OSI and ISI figures indicative of high confidence levels were also seen for New Zealand.

"Interestingly economic optimism, thought gently fading, has continued to trigger strong demand for property space in Japan. It's clear both foreign and domestic investors still see the value of Japanese commercial real estate and remain particularly enamored with the office, retail and industrial sectors. We believe this upward trend will unlikely reverse itself anytime soon and investment numbers will continue to uptick for some time to come," noted Wu.
The RICS Global Commercial Property Survey is a quarterly guide to developing trends in the commercial property investment and occupier market. Find out more about the survey here.  

*About the RICS Occupier Sentiment Index (OSI) and the RICS Investment Sentiment Index (ISI)

The OSI is constructed by taking an unweighted average of readings for three series relating to the occupier market measured on a net balance basis; occupier demand, the level of inducements and rent expectations.

The ISI is constructed by taking an unweighted average of readings for three series relating to the investment market measured on a net balance** basis; investment enquiries, capital value expectations and the supply of distressed properties.

**Net balances are calculated by subtracting the numbers of respondents reporting 'down' from the number who reported 'up'.