BANKING
TCB, BOC to sign MOU
Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB, 合作金庫銀行) said on Friday it would sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bank of China (BOC, 中國銀行) on Tuesday on cooperation between the two banks. Under the MOU, the two banks will work together in providing several financial services, including foreign exchange, trade financing, syndicated loans, interbank lending and loans for small and medium enterprises, the bank said. It also indicated that the two partners would soon launch personnel exchanges to develop better mutual understanding. The Taiwanese bank is also scheduled to open a Chinese branch in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, on Wednesday. The branch is targeted at Taiwanese companies operating in China.
FINANCE
SEC greenlights new rules
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved new accounting rules designed to help investors assess fraud risks and material changes in a public company’s financial condition. The changes are “designed to benefit investors by establishing requirements that enhance the effectiveness of the auditor’s assessment of and response to the risks of material misstatement in an audit,” the regulator said yesterday in a statement. Changes include more emphasis on fraud risks, disclosures, multilocation audit requirements and a new concept of materiality, the SEC said as it approved the rules, proposed in September by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The risk standards replace rules written 20 to 30 years ago, it said.
TAXATION
Colombia mulls tax extension
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said his government is considering extending for one year and broadening a tax on high-income earners to help pay for the damage caused by the worst rains in 30 years. The tax, which currently is levied on people with assets of more than 3 billion pesos (US$1.5 million), may be extended to those with more than 1.5 billion pesos, Santos said in an interview with RCN Radio. The tax was scheduled to expire in 2014. The government is not considering raising the value-added tax, Santos said. Colombia on Thursday lowered its growth estimate for this year to 4.5 percent from 5 percent.
BANKING
Credit Suisse sells portfolio
Credit Suisse is selling a US$2.8 billion property portfolio in one of the largest bank sales of distressed loans since the 2008 financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Swiss banking giant is to sell the portfolio for US$1.2 billion to Apollo Management LP, the newspaper reported. The loans were for apartment buildings in Germany and hotels in a number of European countries in areas hard hit by the economic crisis, it said citing sources familiar with the sale.
BANKING
US investigates Swiss banks
The US Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into small Swiss regional banks which may have helped Americans evade taxes, the New York Times reported, citing two people briefed on the matter. The investigation will also look at Wall Street banks that provide banking services to these regional banks, known as cantonal banks, the paper said in an article published on Thursday. The Wall Street banks might have been used by the regional banks to pool client money so individual clients could not be identified by US authorities, the paper said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last