The government will accelerate its financial negotiations with China to push for a memorandum of understanding (MOU) across the Taiwan Strait before exploring the possibility of allowing Chinese banks to take up stakes in domestic banks, Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹) said yesterday.
Chen comment came in response to media speculation that China’s Bank of Communications Co (交通銀行) plans to spend US$100 million on a stake in Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控).
“It’s too early to say until a MOU is signed between Taiwan and China,” Chen told reporters on the sidelines of a business group gathering in Taipei where he delivered the keynote speech.
Taishin Financial chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) rejected the idea of his bank teaming up with Chinese banks early last month given current government regulations. He said at the time that Taishin was in talks with several foreign private equity funds about a capital injection.
Chen said his deputy, Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠), along with a commission delegation, would attend a financial seminar in Beijing next week, where details of such a MOU may be touched on.
He also shrugged off the question of whether the government would allow Chinese banks to take up shares in government-run banks, saying: “It depends on the supporting measures of an MOU.”
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