In a country where the working-age population will decline this year - a first among the emerging economies of Southeast Asia, the demand for elderly robots is on the increase. For example, apart from exercising with and entertain the elderly with its karaoke skills, keeping track of their...

Profits for Japan’s three big banks would be reduced by at least 300 billion yen ($2.96 billion) for the year through March 2017 due to the negative interest rates under the Bank of Japan's monetary easing policy, estimates Japan's financial watchdog. This was reported by the Nikkei business daily...

If the French remain a reference in the world of cosmetics, it is because their secrets are well-kept. Among the most successful companies abroad, Sarbec Cosmetics, the first French independent and family-based group of cosmetics, has managed to get in the game thanks to its brand Corine de Farme....

A loophole in the banking system that authorities said allows drug cartels to move bulk cash across borders on gift and other prepaid cards, was tried to be plugged in 2011 by the U.S. Treasury Department amid a crackdown on international money laundering.   Money stored on these cards count...

2,700 bitcoins that were forfeited during several cases would be auctioned by the U.S. very soon according to an announcement of a U.S. government agency. Investigations of the online black market known as Silk Road was the source of many of the bitcoins the agency said.   The potential...

A European Union (EU)-wide battle for business and finance from China has seen France to be in the forefront. Chinese interest in French aerospace, alcohol, cosmetics and luxury goods is growing even though it has been a little slower than Germany and the U.K. to ratchet up trade with Beijing....

Rattling the global bitcoin community in the second-biggest security breach ever of a bitcoin exchange, nearly 120,000 units of digital currency bitcoin worth about US$72 million was stolen from the exchange platform Bitfinex in Hong Kong.   Bitfinex is known in the digital currency...

The stocks of Ford Motors and those of its rival auto companies tumbled after the US auto maker declared that the U.S. auto industry's long recovery is at an end.   "The growth is over," Ford Chief Financial Officer Robert Shanks told Reuters in an interview. From the record of 17.47 million...

Surgical robots are poised for big gains in operating rooms around the world even though many doctors see need for improvement.   With surgeons sitting at computer consoles guiding mechanical arms, one in three U.S. surgeries is expected to be performed with robotic systems within five years...

U.S. companies are broadly conceding that the so-called "Brexit" could weigh on profits as they face investors in their first earnings reporting season since Great Britain voted to leave the European Union.   Though it is too soon to tell how deep it may be or when it will come, a hit is...

Insurer Allianz is of the view that demand for cyber insurance in Europe would accelerate due to a duty to protect data more stringently and the growing threat of hacking.   The insurer launched its first product aimed at Germany's small-to-medium-sized manufacturers when it made this...