keywords: malaysia singapore asia hong banks
text: Malaysia Rolls Out The Red Carpet (BusinessWeek Online) BusinessWeek Online - Malaysia has never aspired to be the freewheeling financial hub that Hong Kong and Singapore have become in Asia. For nearly 30 years, the country has been closed to all but a handful of foreign banks -- and they were mostly outfits like HSBC Bank Holdings PLC  and Standard Chartered Bank that had been there since colonial times. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, foreign banks pared back operations even more. ...