The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday announced plans to ease regulations that would allow venture capital subsidiaries of financial holding companies to increase stakes in firms in creative industries.
The upcoming liberalization is another bid by the commission to help boost the nation’s creative industries, as their counterparts in South Korea and China are gaining popularity and bringing in significant tourism revenues for those nations.
Under the regulatory easing, the venture capital units of domestic financial service providers could increase investment to NT$150 million (US$4.96 million) in firms engaged in creative industries, triple the current NT$50 million limit.
The existing restriction aims to prevent financial companies from owning heavy stakes in non-financial firms, especially in printing, broadcasting and other media businesses.
The commission also bars financial firms from controlling more than a 15 percent stake in individual invested companies.
Now the commission has said it is to free venture capital arms of financial conglomerates from the 15 percent cap, meaning that other subsidiaries cannot take part in the regulatory easing, according to a statement on its Web site.
The deregulation would not extend to printing, broadcasting and other media companies on concerns about heavy connections between the financial and media industries, the commission said.
That means that financial service providers may not invest more than NT$50 million or own more than 15 percent shares in media companies, the commission.
The deregulation is to take effect in about two weeks.
The financial regulator has encouraged local banks to support firms in creative industries, despite the difficulty of evaluating their assets.
As of last month, outstanding loans to the sector totaled NT$235 billion, up NT$53.3 billion from December last year and already surpassing the NT$50 billion goal set for the entire year, the commission said.
In a related development, the commission has allowed overseas banking branches to use looser requirements for mortgage operations abroad, in line with international standards.
Foreign branches of Taiwanese banks may use capital-to-risk ratios of 35 percent when processing mortgages overseas, compared with 45 percent for self-occupancy home loans and 100 percent for non-self-occupancy lending in Taiwan.
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