Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), the banking arm of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), has won approval from China to upgrade its representative office in Shanghai to a branch, the -Taipei-based lender said in a statement yesterday.
Cathay Financial president Chen Tsu-pei (陳祖培), who is visiting China with colleagues, said in the statement the upgrade would help the Taiwanese bank advance its China expansion plan more quickly.
Cathay Financial has recruited adequate staff for the expansion and will open the branch as early as possible, Chen said.
Cathay United Bank is the fifth Taiwanese lender to win approval to set up a branch in China after the two sides granted market access to bilateral industries in June.
Last month, Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行) became the first batch of Taiwanese banks to obtain China’s approval to open branches there.
In addition to Cathay United Bank, Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) yesterday also received approval from the China Bank Regulatory Commission to set up a branch in Shenzhen, parent Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (華南金控) said in statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The branch will have initial capital of 300 million yuan (US$44.9 million), the statement said.
China’s banking regulator also yesterday approved Taiwan Business Bank’s (台灣企銀) bid to open a Shanghai representative office, according to a separate statement.
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