The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is to demand today that the nation’s state-run banks review the information security systems of their overseas branches in the wake of a heist that targeted First Commercial Bank’s (第一銀行) automated teller machines.
State-run banks will also have to inspect the operations of their overseas branches to ensure that they comply with Taiwanese regulations and their host nations, the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper quoted FSC Vice Chairman Kuei Hsien-nung (桂先農) as saying on Saturday.
The newspaper said that the Ministry of Finance plans to convene a meeting with the representatives of state-run lenders before the end of this month.
The ministry will also require banks to report on the progress of their information security upgrades, the newspaper said.
The commission and the ministry’s moves came after the Investigation Bureau discovered that two First Commercial Bank branches in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, might have been hacked, in addition to its London branch.
The Southeast Asian branches reported abnormal Internet connections with the London branch, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with the investigation.
The bureau said it suspects that an international fraud ring might have infiltrated the bank’s systems to set up a connection between London and Taiwan via the two Southeast Asian branches.
A team of information security experts from the bureau are analyzing two hard drives taken from the two Southeastern Asian branches, the bureau said.
First Commercial Bank confirmed the report, but said it found no losses at the two Southeastern Asian branches, as the bank does not have ATMs there.
The bank said it will improve the security firewalls at the two branches.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
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The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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