The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday said it would continue to negotiate with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus on capping the maximum interest rate chargeable on credit and cash cards at 9 percent above the central bank’s interest rate for loans without collateral, or 12.5 percent at the current level.
The DPP yesterday boycotted the proposal after the financial regulator unilaterally reached a consensus with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“The commission didn’t seek a consensus with the DPP before yesterday [Monday], but it will continue to communicate with its caucus,” commission Chief Secretary Lu Ting-chien (盧廷劼) told a media briefing yesterday.
Lu downplayed questions on why the commission had caved in and agreed with KMT legislators’ proposed rate cut, as it had previously proposed a top rate of 12 percent above the central bank’s rate.
The commission earlier sent 10 certified accountants as an independent third party to review the cost structures of banks’ credit-card businesses. The accountants are scheduled to produce a report later this month, which the commission originally hoped would help arbitrate on the rate policy.
Lu did not say why the commission had finalized the policy before the report had been produced. He said the commission would finalize the accountants’ review and that it still expected to publish a report later this month, even though several accountants have expressed their concern that it would be difficult to perform such a complicated review in this timeframe.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained