Domestic non-life insurers are aiming to expand their hold on overseas markets after gaining the central bank’s approval to operate foreign currency-denominated businesses via their offshore insurance units (OIUs).
OIUs give firms access to foreign individuals and institutional clients and the arrangement comes with a 10-year tax exemption.
The central bank on Thursday approved Fubon Insurance Co’s (富邦產險) new foreign exchange businesses after approving Cathay Century Insurance Co (國泰世紀產險) earlier this month, about one year after the Financial Supervisory Commission opened up OIUs for domestic non-life insurers.
Cathay Century will initially focus on serving institutional clients’ general insurance and reinsurance needs, and gradually grow its OIU business by leveraging the footholds established by the firm’s parent company, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), said Kevin Kuo (郭書彬), an OIU manager at Cathay Century.
“The tax incentives will allow for very competitive pricing on upcoming OIU products and services offerings,” Kuo said on Thursday.
In the January-to-July period, 14 insurers with OIU operations collected US$15.33 million in premiums, according to commission data.
Including reinsurance premiums, total collections were tallied at US$42.76 million during the period, the data showed.
Cathay Century posted a total net income of NT$2.1 billion (US$66.42 million) in the first seven months, markedly higher than the NT$350 million it reported during the same period last year, while Fubon Insurance’s total net income fell from NT$2.29 billion to NT$2.04 billion over the same period.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS