Banking institutions should be more active in protecting depositors' interests, instead of demanding that consumers take cautious measures to safeguard their money, as they put their trust in banks, the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) said yesterday.
"Automated-teller machine [ATM] card fraud is not something new in Taiwan," said foundation secretary-general Cheng Jen-hung (
The recent ATM card frauds that began last Friday have caused a near-panic among some consumers, thereby highlighting the issue of ATM transactions security. The police have found that criminals duplicated cards from the card-swipe door-entry system, and stole pin numbers through hidden cameras installed in the machines. The crooks would then use this information to clean out victims' accounts.
Chang Wan-tung (
Although banks involved in the recent high-profile scam have guaranteed that they would make full compensation to victims, Cheng said this was not a good enough remedy.
"It's time to inspect banks' security measures and risk-control management," Chang said. "It is a bank's duty to check if their ATMs are safe for use, not consumers."
Aside from speeding up the adoption of cards with embedded IC chips that are difficult to copy, Chang suggested banks outfit ATMs with sensors to prevent installation of hidden cameras and establish a task force to inspect unusual account activity.
Banks have promised to reimburse stolen money under to Article 7 and 51 of the Consumer Protection Law (
"In the future, the Ministry of Finance and banking institutions should conduct a complete investigation and establish a compensation mechanism to reassure the public," Cheng added.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day