Citigroup Inc aims to double the number of clients at its consumer banking unit in Hong Kong as it challenges HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC by adding branches, cash machines and online services.
The New York-based bank is targeting 2 million consumer--banking customers in the territory in three to five years, up from 1 million now, Citigroup’s head of consumer banking for the Asia-Pacific region Jonathan Larsen said in an interview on Thursday.
Citigroup stepped up expansion in the territory of 7 million -people this year, almost doubling its number of branches to 43 and adding more than 60 automated teller machines. The company is signing up more than 10,000 new retail banking customers a month in Hong Kong, a fivefold increase from the pace at the start of the year, according to spokesman James Griffiths.
HSBC, based in London and founded in Hong Kong in 1865, is the largest bank in the territory with around 100 branches and more than 4 million clients at its personal financial services unit. -Standard Chartered, the British bank that gets most of its profit from Asia, has about 80 branches and operates more than 200 ATMs.
Citigroup’s consumer banking unit oversees retail banking, wealth management for individuals with up to US$10 million of assets, credit cards and small and medium-sized businesses. HSBC includes retail banking, credit cards, insurance, pension savings and investments in its personal financial services operations.
Hong Kong, where the economy grew 6.8 percent in the third quarter, is part of Citigroup’s push to expand in Asia. The US bank plans to boost its branch network in the region to more than 1,000 in the next three to four years from 710 now, Larsen said. Citigroup also aims to triple its number of outlets in China to about 100 within three years.
Standard Chartered said last week that intensifying competition among banks is driving staff costs higher, predicting expenses will rise faster than revenue this year.
In Hong Kong, Citigroup is chipping away at HSBC’s dominant position by expanding the range of outlets where customers can access banking services. The bank said in October it agreed to install ATMs in 7-Eleven stores across the territory.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”