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Standard Chartered opens upgraded foreign exchange

"Standard Chartered now offers a combination of regional branch presence with an extensive international network, which will give us a solid foundation for future growth."

Patrick Gillot, head of Global Markets, Greater China and Japan at Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered Bank opened its revamped foreign exchange dealing room in Taipei yesterday. With a workforce of 70 specialists, it is vowing to become the nation's market leader.

"Despite [the fact] that the local foreign exchange market is regulated, we expect growth from Taiwan," Michael Bass, the British bank's Singapore-based group head of Rates and Foreign Exchange told reporters after yesterday's opening ceremony. "We want to be a major player in the [local] foreign exchange market."

As a leading rates and foreign exchange provider, Standard Chartered said it trades in more than 100 currencies and offers more currency pairs than other rival banks in the Asian market.

Citing the central bank's latest statistics, Bass said the volume of derivatives trading in Taiwan had hit a record high at more than NT$10 billion (US$309 million) in August, with rates and foreign exchange representing the most popular transactions.

Bass said this reflected rising market demand and the booming business sector in Taiwan.

One year after Standard Chartered acquired Hsinchu International Bank (新竹商銀), the UK bank hopes to expand and extend its financial services to smaller lender's 120,000 local corporate clients and 2.3 million individual depositors through its 86 branches nation-wide.

After completing its integration with Hsinchu Bank in July, "Standard Chartered now offers a combination of regional branch presence with an extensive international network, which will give us a solid foundation for future growth," said Patrick Gillot, the bank's head of Global Markets, Greater China & Japan, adding that the bank is the top player in the region's syndicate loan, fixed-income and corporate finance markets.

Standard Chartered, moreover, demonstrated its commitments to the local market by increasing global market talent, hiring a Taipei-based economist and rolling out a plan to send staff overseas for training, Standard Chartered Taiwan president Jim McCabe said.

Eva Sam (沈秀梅), head of the bank's global corporate sales and wholesale banking, said that aside from loans, Taiwanese businesses were in need of several value-added and tailor-made financial services, including risk-averting vehicles and earnings reinvestment opportunities.

RATE CUT

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered Bank global market economist Tony Phoo (符銘財) said yesterday that the US Federal Reserve will cut its interest rate 0.25 percentage points this week and again next month.

The US central bank will decide whether it will further cut rates at the two-day meeting ending today.

Phoo said the New Taiwan dollar would react to the possible cut and continue its rally against the greenback. But he said the upside momentum of the NT dollar would be capped by the central bank in a bid to maintain a steady appreciation pace at home. The NT dollar edged up NT$0.005 to close at NT$32.410 against the greenback yesterday.

It is expected, however, to fall back to the NT$33 level in the first quarter of next year and consolidate at an average NT$32 next year, Phoo said.

On the price front, Phoo expressed concern over the rising price of crude oil, which faces a near-term uptrend primarily over geopolitical circumstances.

Standard Chartered expects the "oil bubble" to burst "in the near term," with prices falling between US$68 and US$70 per barrel next year amid a US slowdown.

As oil imports and transportation account for 13 percent of the local consumer price index, Phoo said the nation's inflation rate will climb to between 2 and 2.5 percent in the first half of next year, with an expected decline to an average at 1.7 percent next year.

Standard Chartered also revised its economic growth forecast for the nation next year from 4.5 percent to 4.7 percent.
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