Banking on the nation's growing wealth, Citigroup yesterday officially rolled out its private banking service, hoping to help local multi-millionaires manage their increasingly deeper pockets.
"Taiwan's economy is still well positioned at the stage of wealth creation," Samuel Suen (
"Taiwan is one of the largest wealth management markets in Asia, and its high net-worth population is expanding in tandem, demanding a more sophisticated range of financial instruments to help meet their wealth management needs," Suen said.
Citigroup Private Bank, one of the leading players in the wealth management sector worldwide, is targeting local premium clients who have at least US$10 million in assets.
ABN AMRO in October launched its private banking business in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, zeroing in on clients with liquid assets of more than US$1 million. BNP Paribas Private Bank also unveiled its wealth management business here during the same month to serve customers with liquid assets of around US$500,000.
Taiwan's wealth-management market is estimated to be worth around US$250 billion -- created by between 80,000 and 100,000 high net-value households. It is the fifth-largest market in the Asia-Pacific plus Middle-Eastern region, after Japan, China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, ABN AMRO said.
Foreign banks such as Citigroup, ABN AMRO and BNP Paribas were attracted by the region's central banks' further liberalization of foreign exchange policies, increased diversity of financial products, as well as Taiwanese clients' rising needs for sophisticated onshore portfolio management, said Victor Chao (趙志平), Citigroup Private Bank's chief officer for Taiwan.
Citigroup Private Bank currently accounts for 2 percent of the segmented wealth-management market with yields worth NT$540 billion worldwide, in which the top 10 players claim only 15 percent of the market, Citigroup said, implying ample room for growth.
The US-based lender said the number of Taiwanese high net-worth investors who possess liquid assets of over US$300,000 is expected to grow to 328,000 by the end of 2008 from 194,200 at the end of 2003, citing Datamonitor's Asian-Pacific wealth management markets' survey released last year.
Meanwhile, the value of these rich people's assets would nearly double to
US$301 billion from US$164 billion, which translates into a compound annual
growth rate of 12.9 percent, the second highest in the region after China
only, according to the survey.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the