The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has summoned former Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才) for questioning on Sunday, amid allegations that Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) New York branch might have been involved in money laundering.
FSC Chairman Ding Kung-wha (丁克華) yesterday said that Tsai, who no longer works in the financial sector, could clarify claims that the New York branch was involved in money laundering.
“Tsai has nothing to worry about, as the FSC is not a judicial body and is focused on learning the truth about the case,” Ding said, while speaking at a cooperative education event, which promises to provide 7,000 internship positions at financial firms.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
Until Mega Bank resolves the problems associated with the money-laundering allegations, it will be barred from opening any new branches overseas, Ding said.
The commission, which plans to send a delegation to New York and Panama next week to examine Mega Bank’s operations there, yesterday said it respects a decision by the Panamanian government to launch an investigation into the bank, as the Central American country has jurisdiction over banks operating within its territory.
The decision by the Superintendency of Banks of Panama (SBP) to investigate Mega Bank’s branch in Panama came after the New York Department of Financial Services accused Panama of serving as a high-risk jurisdiction for money laundering.
By conducting an investigation into the Mega Bank matter, the SBP is seeking to disprove the department’s allegations and clear Panama’s reputation, FSC Vice Chairman Kuei Hsien-nung (桂先農) said.
Separately, Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) yesterday announced that its board of directors had unanimously voted to appoint Catherine Lee (李紀珠) to fill the long-vacant position of president.
Lee is the chairperson of state-run Taiwan Financial Holdings (台灣金控). Her term is to conclude at the end of this month.
Having served as a government official as well as in the banking, securities and insurance sectors, Lee will be tasked with developing new horizons in digital finance, as well as optimizing current operations, Shin Kong said in a statement.
Additional reporting by CNA
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS