Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
"Disciplinary action will be taken against banks if their negligence led to the information leak," Lin told a press conference yesterday.
If the information-management system in a bank were found to be at fault, the ministry would ask the bank to overhaul and improve the system, he added.
Lin, however, said that it was too early to conclude that banks were responsible for the leak of their client's information, although he admitted that "there is room for banks to improve their information-management system since complaints are often lodged."
The police are still looking into how personal information on more than 15 million people was obtained from telecommunication companies and financial institutions, which was bought and used by crime organizations in various scams.
Based on the police's preliminary investigation, the personal information included names, dates of birth and telephone numbers. More detailed information such as bank accounts, credit card numbers, income and family status were also discovered, the police said.
To combat financial scams, a Cabinet-level inter-ministerial meeting, attended by representatives from the private banking sector, yesterday finalized five preventive measures and urged banks to implement them.
According to a statement released by the Bureau of Monetary Affairs, banks will only be allowed to provide transfer services, upon request by clients, to accounts which are not previously designated by depositors, beginning from June 1.
Beginning from May 10, each transfer transaction to non-designated accounts will not exceed NT$100,000 per day, the statement said, adding that new bank account applicants will be required to present their personal identification card and extra identification with a photo such as a passport, driver's license or health-insurance card.
To prevent forged credit cards and fraudulent savings accounts, the finance ministry had previously asked banks to take digital snapshots of clients when opening new accounts. The photo policy took effect on April 1.
The inter-ministerial meeting also reviewed the policy, recommended by the Bankers Association of the ROC (
The meeting reached a consensus that local banks will provide necessary assistance and information to financial-crime investigators within one week after the police ask for it.
According to local media reports, affected institutions include Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), Macoto Bank (誠泰銀行), Fubon Commercial Bank (富邦銀行), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), E. Sun Bank (玉山銀行) and Taishin Bank (台新銀行).
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts