Helping Taiwan’s financial institutions to accelerate their expansion in Asia will be one of the Financial Supervisory Commission’s (FSC) major tasks next year, commission Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) said on Wednesday.
Since late last year, the commission has been encouraging major financial holding companies to be more active in overseas mergers and acquisitions through the provision of regulatory incentives.
Tseng said earlier that the commission hopes Taiwanese banks could look for business diversification outside of Taiwan and the nation could create in Asia regional banks similar to DBS Bank Ltd of Singapore.
“However, the pace of Taiwanese financial institutions’ expansion in the Asian market has been too slow,” Tseng said in a speech at a financial industry forum in Taipei.
Tseng said the government is set to choose eight financial holding firms and would help them to successfully develop in Asia over the next three to five years to become potential regional players.
Under the plan, there will be six possible companies — two focusing on banking, two life insurers and two brokerage houses — that might have the capability to stand by themselves in Asia, he added.
The commission has sent letters to the nation’s 16 financial holding companies, encouraging them to report their expansion plans for the next three to five years to the commission after holding their year-end board meetings, Tseng said.
Tseng said the government’s plan to push for mergers and acquisitions among state-owned financial institutions will continue.
“However, we will not wait [for the mergers], as the commission’s plan would be executed in parallel without conflict,” he said.
Market watchers have said that consolidation is the primary long-term goal for Taiwanese banks, with smaller banks appearing to be potential acquisitions based on asset size and shareholder structure.
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