Among the nation’s 32 life insurers, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan (保德信人壽) was the only company to be recognized by the Financial Supervisory Commission as a model company for the second straight year.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) also won model company status in 2007, but did not make the grade last year.
The honorary status allows the company to sell new policies without first gaining regulatory approval, Wu Chung-chuan (吳崇權), deputy director-general of the commission’s insurance bureau, told a media briefing yesterday.
In lieu of regulatory approval, Prudential can go ahead with its sales of new policies and provide the commission with its policy documents for review within 15 days, Wu said.
To win model company status, Prudential has met requirements set by the commission in 2006, including a risk-based capital ratio of more than 250 percent, an above A-plus rating and participation in social welfare work, the commission said.
In addition, 75 percent of its full-time staff have been licensed, 80 percent of subscribers to basic coverage have stayed with the company for more than two years and it has not violated any regulations in the past year, the statement said.
In related news, the revised Securities and Futures Investors Protection Act is scheduled to take effect on Saturday, marking an important milestone in the protection of domestic shares and futures investors, the commission said in a press statement yesterday.
The revised Act stipulates that the Securities and Futures Protection Center is empowered to file class-action lawsuits on behalf of share investors to dismiss unqualified board directors or supervisors at publicly traded companies who are proved to have harmed the company.
The new act also empowers the center to negotiate or mediate disputes among investors who have put down less than NT$1 million (US$30,000) in shares or futures investments.
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