Asia Pacific shares got off to a strong start on Monday, building on Wall Street’s rally last Friday, as oil prices kept close to the lows reached at the end of last week, helping ease concerns over inflation as economies slow.

Financial companies were boosted by their US counterparts’ gains on Friday, which were in part driven by remarks by the Korea Development Bank that it might take a stake in Lehman Brothers. That raised hopes of a quicker end to the subprime-related turmoil that has dogged the economy. However, the state-owned KDB played down the comments over the weekend.