Japanese financial authorities announced yesterday that they are punishing Citibank by suspending private banking operations for a year at four of its branches after finding problems with their operations.
The Financial Services Agency ordered that private banking operations be suspended at Citibank's Marunouchi, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka branches for one year from Sept. 29. The private banking licenses of those branches will then be revoked on Sept. 30 next year, so that operations will be discontinued, it said.
Citibank in Japan, part of Citigroup Inc., said yesterday that it accepts the orders and will comply with them.
The FSA's action was in response to a request from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission of Japan, the nation's stock market watchdog, which recently inspected Citibank Japan's private banking operations and identified violations by the bank and its employees.
Citibank Japan apologized and said it will prevent a recurrence. All banking services provided to existing retail customers will be unaffected by the sanctions, Citibank said.
Citibank Japan will strengthen internal control systems to abide by local laws, it said. Six officers have left Citibank to accept responsibility for the problems in Japan, and eight employees have had their compensation reduced and other employees have received formal reprimands, it said.
Private banking consists of lending, investment management, and other banking services for wealthy customers. Retail banking consists of services regular people use, such as savings accounts.
The FSA said it also ordered Citibank to refrain from accepting foreign currency deposits from new customers for one month starting Sept. 29.
Japanese regulators said they decided on the sanctions after finding a large number of "severe legal violations" being conducted by Citibank's Marunouchi Branch and the offices in Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka. Authorities judged that "it would be inappropriate for operations to continue" at the branches, they said.
Article 27 of Japan's Banking Law allows the government to revoke banking licenses when a financial institution acts in a manner that is detrimental to public interest.
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component
UNPRECEDENTED DEAL: The arrangement which also includes AMD risks invalidating the national security rationale for US export controls, an expert said Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) have agreed to pay 15 percent of their revenue from Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip sales to the US government in a deal to secure export licenses, an unusual arrangement that might unnerve both US companies and Beijing. Nvidia plans to share 15 percent of the revenue from sales of its H20 AI accelerator in China, a person familiar with the matter said. AMD is to deliver the same share from MI308 revenue, the person added, asking for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The arrangement reflects US President Donald Trump’s consistent effort to engineer