Bank SinoPac’s (永豐銀行) plan to sell 20 percent of its shares to China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國工商銀行) will allow the lender to use ICBC’s extensive network to serve customers in China and across Southeast Asia, Bank Sino Pac chairman Paul Chiu (邱正雄) said yesterday.
The deal is favorable to Bank SinoPac which is seeking expansions in Greater China and ASEAN markets, but has made limited progress due to its small scale and late start, Chiu said.
“The strategic alliance will enable Bank SinoPac to grow and better serve customers via ICBC’s 17,000 outlets worldwide,” Chiu told a forum on the banking industry’s development and the challenges it faces.
Bank SinoPac and ICBC inked the investment pact in April, but the deal still needs to be confirmed during the next cross-strait trade talks and gain bilateral regulatory approval, Chiu said.
ICBC, the world’s largest bank by market value, has a well-established service network across China and in Southeast Asia where a growing number of Taiwanese companies have set up their businesses, but are under-served, Chiu said.
Bank SinoPac can take advantage of its Chinese partner to reach out to the customers while progressively building up its own network, Chiu said.
“All banks know the importance of ‘following your customers’ when drawing up a development strategy, but this is easier said than done,” Chiu said.
Bank SinoPac is awaiting approval from China to set up its subsidiary in Nanjing and has yet to find suitable targets for acquisition to advance its planned expansions in Southeast Asia.
ICBC, on the other hand, is not as eager to foray into the local market, which is both crowded and fragmented, with the lowest interest spread in Asia, the firm’s chairman said.
Citibank Taiwan chairman Victor Kuan (管國霖) said local peers lag far behind international rivals in tapping the Chinese market and their modest size renders meaningful partnerships with top-tier Chinese banks unlikely.
The gap in bilateral scales explains why Taiwanese banks are seeking second-tier or third-tier Chinese peers as allies instead, Kuan said.
As organic and inorganic expansions require time and money, Kuan suggested Taiwanese banks should seek to exploit emerging opportunities in China and ASEAN nations by offering their financial services and products.
The planned offshore yuan and Formosa bond markets are good ideas, but their success requires more regulatory easing, Kuan said.
E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) chairman Gary Tseng (曾國烈) said people in China and Taiwan have different work ethics, although the two sides share the same language and culture.
Banks should bear that in mind, in addition to bracing for a more complicated legal system that involves more layers of government, Tseng 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
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
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