Credit-card laws set for change
The Bureau of Monetary Affairs under the Ministry of Finance yesterday said that it plans to reinforce the management of credit-card issuers, requiring them to install an independent accounting system within a year.
"The accounting system will clearly illuminate banks' performance of credit-card businesses," the bureau's deputy director general Huang Tien-mu (黃天牧) said at a press conference.
Despite banks' interests in credit-card businesses in recent years, most issuers are not making a profit out of the services, Huang said. The nation's top nine credit-card issuers each have over 1 million card holders while half of the nation's 55 issuers have less than 1 percent of the market share, he said
The ministry hopes the new accounting system will help improve banks' performance on credit-card services so as to stress the importance of consumer protection and rights.
LPG firms to lower prices
Both Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) yesterday announced price cuts in their wholesale prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to reflect a drop in crude oil costs.
The price cuts will be effective midnight tonight, companies said.
The two oil refiners said they will cut the prices of LPG used by households by NT$0.40 a kilogram and reduce automobile LPG by NT$0.50 a kilogram. Chinese Petroleum and Formosa Petrochemical will also cut prices of the gas for industrial use by NT$0.47 and NT$0.48 a kilogram, respectively, they said.
ING eyes bank stake
ING Groep NV may consider buying a controlling stake in Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), a Chinese-language newspaper reported citing ING's head of Greater China Patrick Poon (潘燊昌).
The Ministry of Finance, which holds a majority stake at Chang Hwa, has been in contact with ING and would not rule out an offer, the paper reported, citing an unidentified ministry official.
ING may also look at investment companies which have sizeable bonds fund portfolios as a way to expand its asset management business in Taiwan, the paper quoted Poon as saying.
US firm looks to Taiwan
US research institute SRI Inter-national is planning to set up a research and development hub in Taiwan, in the belief that Taiwan is a country with vast global potential and competitiveness in biotechnological industrial development, an industrial leader said yesterday.
Tai Chien (戴謙), administrator of the Tainan Science Park, said SRI International authorities have given great credit to Taiwan's potential to be developed into an international biotech R&D stronghold.
If SRI International -- an independent, non-profit research institute formerly known as Stanford Research Institute -- decides to relocate part of its R&D operations to Taiwan, the Tainan Science Park will be one of the partners in Taiwan for cooperation, Tai said.
HannStar sale takes off
HannStar Display Corp, the nation's fourth-largest maker of flat-panel displays, raised a greater-than-expected US$225 million selling bonds convertible into its stock after investors ordered about 15 times the amount offered.
The bonds don't pay any interest and were sold at face value, said Simon Aird, head of Asia equity syndicate at Credit Suisse First Boston, one of the sale's arrangers.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.017 to close at NT$33.793 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$742.5 million.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to