Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) yesterday said the commission might evaluate the feasibility of investors placing stock orders via popular messaging app Line in one month.
Lawmakers first raised the issue during a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee on Monday in a bid to improve convenience for investors ordering stock transactions, with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hsueh Ling (薛凌) bringing it up again yesterday.
“Currently, users are unable to record their messages via messaging apps, including Line, which renders the government unable to see it as a safe and credible method for placing stock orders,” Tseng said during a legislative question-and-answer session.
Tseng remained open to the idea, saying that if messaging apps can be proved secure, without information security risks, the commission might consider allowing investors to use these apps to place stock transactions.
Securities and Futures Bureau Director-General Wu Yui-chun (吳裕群) said the key issue is that brokerage houses must be able to record voice messages from these messaging apps to protect investors’ rights and interests, which they still cannot do through Line.
In related news, Tseng said a portion of capital in the nation might flow into the Shanghai Stock Exchange in the short term if Taiwan and China adopt the Shanghai-Taiwan Stock Connect proposal recently raised by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission.
“The nation has to reach a consensus on whether or not to adopt the Shanghai-Taiwan Stock Connect,” Tseng said.
China and Hong Kong initiated the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program in November last year, with a link connecting the stock exchanges in China’s Shenzhen and Hong Kong expected to be launched in the second half of this year.
Asked about updates regarding local banks’ loans to Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), Tseng said the latest data showed that loans to the group have dropped to NT$19 billion (US$602.5 million) from NT$41 billion recorded in October last year, with loans from state-run banks declining to NT$3.5 billion.
The government asked state-owned banks to freeze credit to Ting Hsin and its affiliates in October, following the food maker involvement in various food safety scandals over the previous year.
Various private financial institutions have also frozen credit to the food conglomerate and its affiliates as the result of risk considerations.
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