UBS AG and Citigroup Inc said they are hiring more private bankers to serve Taiwan, where the richest citizens hold more wealth than in any Asian country except for China and Japan.
UBS will add 30 private bankers here this year for a total of 80, Dennis Chen (陳允懋), who oversees the company's onshore private-banking business in Taipei, said in an interview.
Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and ABN Amro Holding NV said they will also add bankers to cater to the nation's wealthy.
Taiwan had 210,000 citizens at home and abroad with net assets of at least US$1 million in 2005, controlling about US$585 billion of wealth, according to the Boston Consulting Group, which advises private banks. Taiwan trailed China by only US$215 billion, but has only less than 2 percent of the latter's population.
"Taiwan is not only an amazing market when you look at its net-worth per capita, but also a very deep market in terms of wealth concentration," said Peter Tung, a managing director for Morgan Stanley's Private Wealth Management in Asia.
People with at least US$5 million in assets own 15 percent of Taiwan's financial wealth, Boston Consulting estimates, almost twice Australia's 8 percent.
Taiwan's rich also generate higher-than-average revenue for private banks because they use more services and trade investments more actively, said Tjun Tang, a Hong Kong-based managing director of Boston Consulting.
Private banks earn about 1.5 percent annually managing offshore assets of Taiwan citizens, compared with 0.95 percent for all of Asia, Tang said.
Taiwan's wealthy are seeking private bankers, often offshore, because of insecurity over tensions with China and high tax rates, Chen of UBS said.
Private bankers, who often require that clients have at least US$1 million in assets, provide customized services that include advice on taxes and managing investments and inheritance plans.
Taiwan's inheritance tax of up to 50 percent is among the highest in Asia. Hong Kong has no such tax, while Singapore's is up to 10 percent. Also, the nation's top personal income tax rate of 40 percent is more than twice that of Hong Kong.
High taxes make Taiwan "so unattractive" for the wealthy to park money compared with locations such as Hong Kong, said Sherry Lin (
The nation's wealthy may try to move more money offshore before a tax on overseas income takes effect as early as 2009 and the government tightens monitoring of funds sent overseas.
Citizens can move up to US$5 million out of Taiwan each year without needing approval from the central bank.
Political tensions across the Taiwan Strait has also increased demand for safe havens.
"We have noticed accelerating outflows in the past two years," said Oliver Yu, a senior manager of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Taipei, adding that the nation's rich most often stash their money in Hong Kong and Singapore, but increasingly also in Switzerland.
Offshore private banking has also flourished to serve successful entrepreneurs active abroad, including in China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. Citigroup keeps a "significant portion" of its team serving the island's rich in Singapore and Hong Kong, said Richard Straus, a global marketing manager for its private-banking business for Taiwanese.
Issues can arise for private bankers that operate offshore. They aren't allowed to solicit clients living in Taiwan by telephone or on visits to Taiwan, Financial Supervisory Commission Deputy Chairwoman Susan Chang (
The restrictions aren't severe enough to slow the flow of individual assets overseas, said Sabrina Wang, who is a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Wealthy Taiwanese move money offshore partly because of a wider selection of investments than at home.
"People have far more and better opportunities to grow assets abroad," Wang said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last