State intervention to support Italian banks cannot be ruled out, given the risk that difficulties might undermine trust in the nation’s financial industry, Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said yesterday.
“Given the risk that, in a context of high uncertainty, limited problems could undermine the trust in the banking system, a public intervention cannot be excluded,” Visco said in a speech at the Italian Banking Association’s annual meeting in Rome.
Visco, who is also a member of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Governing Council, said the Bank of Italy was working “with the other authorities with determination to promote efficient market interventions” to support Italian banks.
“European regulations provide for the possibility of precautionary public interventions also on capitalization, with reference to the results of stress tests,” Visco said. “The current situation, thick with risks for financial stability, requests the readying of a state backstop to activate in case of necessity, fully respecting EU rules.”
Italian authorities are racing to shore up a financial system burdened by about 360 billion euros (US$398 billion) of troubled loans amid increasing pressure on Italian lenders from the ECB to clean up their balance sheets and tackle troubled loans that are undermining lending.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is exploring measures to support Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA and other weak banks after Britain’s vote to leave the EU exacerbated a sell off in Italy’s lenders.
Italy is in talks with the European Commission on a plan to recapitalize Monte Paschi and other banks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Talks are stuck on whether creditors should face losses if taxpayer funds are used, they said.
Italy favors a precautionary recapitalization according to the EU’s bank-resolution rules, which allow governments to bolster lenders when capital gaps emerge in stress tests, they said.
As the talks drag on, Dutch Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is also chairman of the Eurogroup, told reporters in The Hague that Italian banks were not facing an immediate crisis.
“At a certain point, you need to take the losses, take precautionary measures that will cost money, and the bank, or banks, are going to have to do it,” Dijsselbloem said.
Monte Paschi is working “intensely” with authorities to quickly resolve its bad-loan burden, chief executive officer Fabrizio Viola said on Thursday.
Viola said Monte Paschi’s board reviewed the ECB’s draft request that it reduce its non-performing loans and the board agreed on a response, according to an e-mailed statement.
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
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”