Members of the Financial Technology Consulting Committee yesterday clashed over an initiative aimed at accelerating development to ensure that the nation is prepared for changes as the global market increases the digitization of financial services.
The Financial Supervisory Commission in September formed a new office, along with a consulting committee made up of 15 to 20 experts drawn from the financial and technology sectors, to oversee the integration of resources for boosting development of financial technology (fintech), a crucial emerging industry that would enable the nation to maintain its competitiveness amid the “Bank 3.0” shift.
As of yesterday, NT$200 million (US$6.11 million) of a planned NT$1 billion fund earmarked for the endeavor had been collected from financial-sector companies, the commission said.
However, because the major contributors to the fund are financial companies, a number of committee members expressed concerns that the arrangement might only cater to the financial institutions while neglecting the needs of the technology sector and electronic commerce companies.
“In my view, Taiwan’s financial firms have been operating in a coddled environment, they are like sheep, but wolves are needed right now as we prepare for the immense changes on the horizon,” National Taiwan University of Science and Technology professor Lu Hsi-peng (盧希鵬) said.
“While Internet-based payment transactions are critical to the business model for multiplayer online games, in banks’ eyes it is just an additional offering to its existing services, they simply do not have the hunger to propel the sort of destructive innovation required for change,” Lu said.
Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said that the amount of money is not the issue and that priority should be given to enlisting the right team.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
RSS