BANKING
ECB to bill EU’s banks
The eurozone’s biggest banks will face an annual bill of up to 15 million euros (US$20 million) apiece for being supervised by the European Central Bank (ECB), the ECB said yesterday. The ECB said in a statement that the costs incurred in its new role as Europe’s sole banking supervisory are expected to amount to 260 million euros in 2015. As part of the new Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the ECB will directly supervise up to 130 institutions classified as “significant” with assets in excess of 30 billion euros. Smaller, less significant banks will remain under the remit of the national supervisory authorities. Of the overall sum of 260 million euros, staff costs would amount to about 60 percent, premise-related costs to 10 percent and the remaining 30 percent would be accounted for by other operating expenditure such as travel, consultancy and IT services, the ECB said.
BANKING
Lloyds to sell 25% of TSB
Lloyds Banking Group expects to float about 25 percent of its TSB business on the London Stock Exchange next month, with the remainder to be sold before the end of next year, the bank said yesterday. Banking industry sources said last week they expect TSB to be priced at less than its book value of £1.5 billion (US$2.53 billion), meaning Lloyds would make a loss on the sale of the 200-year-old brand. Lloyds is required to sell the 631 branches making up TSB because of a EU requirement that Lloyds creates more competition in the UK market after receiving state aid in the financial crisis.
BANKING
Reforms too slow: IMF
Progress in completing banking reforms to plug gaps highlighted by the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis is too slow and is being hampered by fierce industry lobbying, the IMF said yesterday. IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said banks were holding more capital now than they did in the run-up to the financial crisis, when taxpayers had to shore up the sector. “The bad news is that progress is still too slow and the finish line is still too far off,” Lagarde told a conference on economic inclusion in London. While the task of reforming banks is complex, progress is also being held back by “fierce industry pushback” and fatigue that is bound to set in at this point in a long race, she said. The IMF estimated that the implicit subsidy or cheaper funding costs from being too big to fail amounted to about US$70 billion in the US and up to US$300 billion in the eurozone.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to boost directors’ pay
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s biggest carmaker, plans to boost pay to directors by 19 percent for the past fiscal year after the company earned a record profit. Toyota proposed ¥1.52 billion (US$14.9 million) in combined compensation and bonuses to directors, including Toyota president Akio Toyoda, in a notice to shareholders yesterday. The Toyota City, Japan-based company paid ¥1.28 billion the previous fiscal year. After recording an unprecedented ¥1.82 trillion profit last fiscal year, Toyota forecast this month that net income will slip 2.4 percent in the year ending March 31. The proposed raise in compensation to directors compares with Toyota’s agreement in March to increase base wages in Japan by an average of ¥2,700 more in base pay per month, 0.8 percent of last year’s average salary and less than the ¥4,000 boost that the Toyota Motor Workers’ Union had asked for.
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
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