The number of Asian companies facing disruption through technology poses difficulties for the development of a sustainable exchange-traded fund market in the region, according to Schroders’ head of Asian equities, Lee King Fuei. Almost half of the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan indexes are weighted to companies that are under attack from fintech, he said, putting benchmark investment under pressure and potentially destroying investors' wealth. "ETFs seem to be all about buying yesterday’s winners and not necessarily about buying the stocks that will do well tomorrow," he said.

St James’s Place, the FTSE 100-listed wealth manager, is calling on fund managers to pursue ESG investing in response to pressure from clients demanding that investments create social impact, reported Hugo Greenhalgh in the Financial Times.

Former footballer Ray Ranson is seeking to democratise sport finance by giving retail investors access to his London Sport Exchange platform, a wholesale market that matches investors with assets such as football clubs, reported Andy Bounds in the Financial Times.

Legal & General Insurance is considering using robo-advisers to remove elements of hassle for customers, but critics say insurance is too wide and personal a subject to resort to "whole-of-market propositions", reported Simoney Kyriakou in the Financial Times Adviser.

Israeli equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd has signed an agreement with Taiwan-based Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (SCSB) to expand the company’s operations. Chinese clients of SCSB will be able to invest in OurCrowd portfolio firms and the deal will allow OurCrowd access to and investment opportunities in Chinese technologies. The agreement should also help foster further partnerships between Chinese firms and Israeli start-ups. The deal, which OurCrowd valued at "single digit millions of dollars", followed the agreement Jerusalem-based OurCrowd made with the Singaporean United Overseas Bank (UOB) in March 2016.

Robo-adviser Moneyfarm, whose chief executive officer, Giovanni Dapra, has said he is on a mission to disrupt the wealth managment industry, has teamed up with Uber to sell pensions and ISAs to its drivers. The ride-hailing company's drivers will be able to access financial advice and pension plans at a discount. Moneyfarm is expected to move into the wider pensions market in coming months. Moneyfarm is backed by German insurance business Allianz.

Online wealth manager start-up Moola has hired Simon Moore, former chief investment officer of FutureAdvisor, a subsidiary of asset manager BlackRock. Moola founder and chief executive Gemma Godfrey said Moore would help the company meet the “evolving needs” of its customers. Moola had already joined forces with BlackRock, having embedding its suite of 14 physically backed ETFs for its model portfolios, and also with investment firm Octopus, fintech provider eValue and securities firm Winterflood. FutureAdvisor, a US digital investment manager, was purchased by BlackRock in 2015.