The Ministry of Finance will be the major mover behind the Financial Supervisory Commission's plan for the banking sector's consolidation, commission Chairman Kong Jaw-sheng (龔照勝) said yesterday.
On Tuesday, the commission announced its criteria for financial holding companies mergers as part of its efforts to create fewer but bigger financial-service companies.
"Government-owned shares [under the ministry's management] will be the best tool to motivate the financial-service sector's further consolidation," Kong said.
Government-run financial holding companies will soon consider working as a catalyst to induce the sector's mergers and acquisitions (M&As), he said.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said in October that he wanted to slash the number of financial holding companies by half from the current 14 by 2006.
Kong said he had called Minis-ter of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) on Tuesday regarding the commis-sion's plan and will later submit the plan to the Cabinet.
While it is up to the Cabinet and the ministry's discretion to carry out the proposal, Kong said the commission will help hammer out concrete measures and incentives to strengthen the consolidation plan, which aims to create one or two leading domestic players in the financial-service sector -- or what the commission called "national champion" banks -- within the next two years.
"Our next-step goal is to create `regional champion' banks within the next three to five years since Taiwan is well positioned to be the region's financial hub, with its advantages as a manufacturing-based economy," Kong said.
On the local bourse, financial shares led gainers yesterday as investors appeared upbeat about the commission's efforts to encourage consolidation.
Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) gained 0.5 percent to NT$21.40, while First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) rose 0.4 percent to NT$27.50.
The private sector also res-ponded positively to the commission's plan, although many people feel more concrete supportive measures are necessary to make it work.
"I think the government instigated plan is necessary and feasible since the private sector lacks the incentive to consolidate further," Mega Financial's executive vice president Joseph Shieh (謝劍平) said in a telephone interview.
Mega Financial has been mentioned many times as the best catalyst for M&As.
"Mega Financial's sizable assets allow it to seek merger partners since the sector's further consolidation is inevitable," Shieh said.
He added, however, that "it is unlikely that Mega Financial will be merged with other rivals."
Thomas Wu (吳東亮), chairman of Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), also gave a thumbs-up response to the commission's plan.
"Now that the government has laid down a clear direction, the private sector will understand what to do," he said.
Two government-run financial holding companies -- First Financial and Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (
First Financial executive vice president Huang Hsien-chuang (黃獻全) said his company is "still evaluating the possibility of conducting M&As although no targets have been selected."
First Financial has placed its priority on a corporate streamlining plan to beef up its competitiveness, he said.
Hua Nan Financial has previously expressed interest in merging with First Financial, but was rebuffed on the grounds that the two companies have similar client bases.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,
RSS