In the first part of this series, I wrote about home bias, the quiet pull toward whatever market feels familiar, and the return it quietly costs investors who never look past it. This part puts that argument to work. Asia is the natural place to start: it's where the gap between a typical European portfolio and the rest of the world tends to be widest, and where "I don't know the market" gets used as a reason to skip past real opportunities rather than a problem to solve.
We track several major Asian markets, arranged from the most straightforward to access to the most involved: Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and India, and we also cover companies from other Asian countries listed on these exchanges. Below, we feature one company from each that currently scores well on the Obermatt 360° View, Safety and Dividend Yield ranks, checked against its actual recent dividend payments rather than just the number in our system. For each market, we explain how a European investor actually gets in, what's distinctive about it, and what happens to the dividend before it reaches your account. And as in the first part, if a company here is new to you, our news summaries are still the fastest way to get the current context around it.
A Few Terms, Explained
- ADR (American Depositary Receipt): A certificate traded on a US exchange that represents shares in a foreign company, letting you invest without opening an account on that company's home exchange. Price generally tracks the home-listed shares closely, since market makers arbitrage away any gap, though liquidity can run thinner than the home market for smaller names. Dividends arrive in USD after conversion, usually with a small additional depositary fee on top of the home country's withholding tax.
- NVDR (Non-Voting Depository Receipt): A Thai instrument that trades on the same order book as the ordinary share, with the same price and liquidity, and pays the same dividend, just without voting rights. Look for the "-R" at the end of the ticker.
- FPI (Foreign Portfolio Investor): A registration required to invest directly in certain markets, such as India, built for institutions like pension funds rather than individual investors.
- Dividend withholding tax: A percentage a foreign government deducts from a dividend before it reaches you, automatically, at the point of payment. Tax treaties between your home country and the company's country can lower this rate, though claiming the lower rate sometimes takes paperwork filed through your broker rather than happening automatically.
- 360° View: Obermatt's overall rank comparing a stock to its peers, from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the better the stock stacks up.
- Safety rank: How stable a company's finances are compared to its peers, from 0 to 100.
- Dividend Yield rank: How a company's dividend compares to its peers, from 0 to 100. This is a rank, not the yield percentage itself, so an 87 here doesn't mean an 87% yield.
Here's where each of the eight currently stands:
Name | 360° View | Safety | Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
Medium • Electronic Manufacturing Services | 94 | 98 | 93 |
X-Large • Casinos & Gaming | 98 | 98 | 87 |
Large • Personal Care Products | 100 | 100 | 87 |
Large • Tobacco | 84 | 80 | 85 |
Large • Pharmaceuticals | 100 | 100 | 93 |
XX-Large • Integrated Oil & Gas | 92 | 76 | 75 |
Large • Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals | 91 | 81 | 87 |
Medium • Financial Exchanges & Data | 94 | 92 | 97 |
Singapore
Singapore's exchange runs on banks, real estate investment trusts and state-linked conglomerates, and its dividend culture is among the most shareholder-friendly in Asia: REITs in particular are built around regular payouts, and many blue-chip names return a steady share of profits year after year. Access could not be simpler. Any international broker offers direct trading, with no local registration and no special account required, and dividends face no withholding tax at all, since they are already taxed at the corporate level and exempt from further tax once distributed.
Venture, the electronics manufacturer that builds products for some of the world's biggest tech brands without ever putting its own name on them, currently scores 94 on the 360° View, 98 on Safety and 93 on Dividend Yield. It paid SGD 0.50 per share in May 2026 and another SGD 0.30 in September, continuing its usual semi-annual payout.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong's exchange leans heavily on property, financials and, notably, gaming: the Macau casino operators listed here make it one of the few major markets anywhere with direct exposure to that industry. Access is as open as Singapore's. Any international broker can trade it directly, and Hong Kong simply does not tax dividends, foreign shareholder or not.
Galaxy Entertainment, the Macau casino operator based in Hong Kong, scores 98 on the 360° View, 98 on Safety and 87 on Dividend Yield, and paid HKD 0.80 per share in May 2026 on top of HKD 0.70 the previous September.
Japan
Japan is the largest and most diversified market on this list, and years of governance reform have pushed its companies toward returning more cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends than they once did. Access is close to frictionless: most international brokers offer direct trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with no local registration and no special account required. The dividend withholding rate is 20% by default, but Switzerland's treaty brings it down to around 10%, and Germany's goes as low as 5% depending on the size of the stake.
KOSÉ, the cosmetics group behind Sekkisei and Decorté, currently scores 100 on the 360° View, 100 on Safety and 87 on Dividend Yield, and has paid JPY 70 per share every six months without a gap through 2024, 2025 and 2026.
South Korea
Korean companies have historically paid out a smaller share of profits than their global peers, a habit tied to the conglomerate, or chaebol, structure that dominates the exchange, though payouts have been rising. Access used to be the exception on this list: until December 2023, foreign investors had to register with Korean regulators before trading a single share, a requirement that had stood for thirty years. It is gone now, and opening an account with a Korean or international broker takes a passport, nothing more. The dividend withholding rate is 20% by default, and European treaty countries typically bring it down to somewhere between 5 and 15%, depending on the size of the holding.
KT&G, the tobacco and ginseng group, scores 84 on the 360° View, 80 on Safety and 85 on Dividend Yield, and paid KRW 4,600 per share in February 2026 and another KRW 2,000 in August.
Indonesia
Southeast Asia's largest economy has a market weighted toward banks, consumer staples and resources, with pharmaceuticals a smaller but well-established sector. Buying in mostly comes down to opening a local securities account, a passport-based process most brokers with Indonesia access handle in a few days, no different in practice from opening an account anywhere else. Dividend withholding starts at 20%, though most of Indonesia's tax treaties bring it down for foreign shareholders who file the right paperwork and hold the position for at least a year.
Kalbe Farma, the country's largest pharmaceutical company, scores 100 on the 360° View, 100 on Safety and 93 on Dividend Yield. Its dividend did drop this year, from IDR 36 to IDR 20 per share, worth knowing before assuming last year's payout as a baseline.
Thailand
Thailand's exchange is weighted toward state-linked energy companies and tourism-adjacent names, and dividend yields here tend to run higher than the regional average. The one quirk is access: Thailand caps how much of a company foreigners can own, so the exchange created NVDRs, which pay the same dividend as the ordinary share and trade on the same board, just without a vote. You buy them like any other stock through any broker with SET access, and you will recognize them by the "-R" at the end of the ticker. Thailand withholds a flat 10% on dividends paid to non-residents, already low by regional standards.
PTT, the state energy company that touches most of the country's fuel and gas supply, scores 92 on the 360° View, 76 on Safety and 75 on Dividend Yield, and paid THB 1.40 per share twice in 2026 alone, in March and again in October.
Taiwan
Taiwan's market is inseparable from the global semiconductor supply chain. Beyond the chipmakers themselves, much of the exchange is weighted toward the hardware and component makers that feed into that industry. Direct access means registering as a foreign investor and opening a local custody account, paperwork most European brokers don't offer and most individual investors won't bother with. In practice, most Europeans get in through an ADR, a Taiwan-focused ETF, or one of the handful of international brokers, Interactive Brokers among them, that support direct access. Taiwan withholds 21% on dividends paid to foreign investors by default, reduced to around 10% for residents of treaty countries, Switzerland and Germany included, once the paperwork is filed.
Asustek, the company behind the ASUS laptops and motherboards many Europeans already own, currently scores 91 on the 360° View, 81 on Safety and 87 on Dividend Yield. It has raised its per-share dividend every year since 2023, from TWD 15 to TWD 42.
India
India is the hardest market on this list to reach directly, and also the one where growth expectations run highest: IT services and consulting, a sector few other Asian markets can match, anchor a large share of the exchange. India doesn't really open its exchanges to individual foreign investors. Direct access runs through Foreign Portfolio Investor registration, a framework built for pension funds and asset managers, not individuals. The realistic route for a European is an ADR, or a fund that already holds the FPI registration itself. Dividend withholding sits at 20% by default, cut to around 10% for most European treaty countries once you've filed a tax residency certificate.
CRISIL, the Indian credit ratings and research firm majority owned by S&P Global since 2019, isn't a name most Europeans would recognize on sight, but it's exactly the kind of company our news summaries are built to give quick context on. It doesn't trade as an ADR, so the practical route for a European is a fund that already holds the FPI registration itself. CRISIL currently scores 94 on the 360° View, 92 on Safety and 97 on Dividend Yield, the highest of the eight markets covered here. It paid a ₹9 interim dividend in the first quarter of 2026 and a ₹10 interim dividend in the second, continuing its practice of paying dividends every quarter rather than just once or twice a year.
From Singapore's zero paperwork to India's registration maze, these eight markets cover the full range of what "investing abroad" can mean in practice, and in every case a company that would have been just as invisible as the market itself without a rank to point to it first. The barrier was never really the company. It was not knowing where to look, or what to do once you found something. The next part in this series does the same thing for a different corner of the world.