The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) plans to ease regulations governing offshore banking and securities operations as part of stimulus measures to make Taiwan more business-friendly.
The commission set out its deregulation plans in a statement on Tuesday after several financial service providers complained that the changes were confusing.
The opening is intended to boost wealth and asset management businesses at offshore banking units (OBUs) and offshore securities units (OSUs) whose services are limited to non-residents and institutional investors, the statement said.
The virtual units of domestic banks and securities houses will no longer need to obtain the commission’s approval before launching new products and services as required currently, and will only need to file reports afterwards, the statement said.
The commission said it will allow domestic banking units to broker transactions of offshore fixed-income products to meet demand from local institutional investors — namely domestic life insurance companies.
The opening would allow save Taiwanese life insurers to save on huge commission costs for their investments in foreign bonds aimed at generating regular fixed income.
“The liberalization would attract foreign investors to engage in wealth management activity via OBUs and OSUs, thereby enlarging the local financial market and grooming local financial professionals,” the commission said, adding that local fund houses will be allowed to manage foreign- currency-denominated assets on behalf of institutional investors.
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