India and the greater China region will be the two most important markets for ABN-AMRO Bank in its attempt to become a truly global bank, said Paul Scholten, the outgoing Taiwan country head of ABN-AMRO Bank.
"You have to be active in these two markets if you want to become a global bank," said Scholten, who will be based in Amsterdam covering the bank's European consumer and commercial banking business.
Foreign banks in Taiwan will either have to be "niche players or become local players" -- which means competing mainly with local counterparts, Scholten said.
Citibank, which has formed a strategic alliance with Fubon Group (
Scholten, who took over the helm of the Taiwan branch of the Dutch banking giant in 1996, will also be responsible for the firm's global diamond finance business.
ABN-AMRO will be looking for "some kind of merger" in Taiwan after the passage of the Financial Holding Company Law (
"It takes at least three to four years to complete a merger," he said.
Post-merger work is vital, he said, because if the merged banks fail to integrate correctly, they may then again become a takeover target. While increasing asset size is important, local banks should focus more on profitability so that they will be better able to endure economic downturns, Scholten said.
He said Taiwan will probably have around 15 banks in the next five years, with the largest banks taking about a 20 percent market share -- the same as in Holland or Singapore. "Taiwan does not need 53 banks," he said.
The recent appeal by local business tycoons to roll over the debt of troubled firms may be justified if the cutting the credit line to these corporations will speed up their demise.
"Banks should not pull the rug if it is possible for [borrowers] to repay the loan later," he said. "But one should not indefinitely roll over those debts ... because at the end of the day someone has to pay back the interest."
In 1999, ABN-AMRO acquired the consumer banking operations of Bank of America. Last year it acquired Kuang Hua Securities Investment and Trust Co Ltd (光華投信) and formed ABN-AMRO Asset Management Co.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is