A shiny new cohort yesterday joined the workforce in Taiwan — a troop of mini robots all going by the name “Pepper,” enlisted to entertain customers and give them the hard sell.
Mandarin-speaking Peppers were introduced into two banks and an insurance company in Taipei, dancing to music, playing with children in lobbies and leading staff aerobics sessions.
The pint-size white automatons are designed to flatter customers in line, declaring: “It’s my honor to serve you.”
Skilled in public relations, they guess clients’ ages at far lower than reality. Then they move in for the kill, providing information on financial products and encouraging customers to go to company Web sites and sales staff for information.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s biggest insurer, introduced its first Pepper to its Taipei branch yesterday.
The firm plans to have 10 robots nationwide, but said that Pepper is meant to supplement its human colleagues, not sideline them.
“Pepper’s job is to greet customers and introduce products to make the wait for services less boring,” Cathay Life executive vice president Rachel Wang (王麗秋) said.
“We hope it can do more in the future, but it definitely will not replace our staff,” she said.
The robot was first unveiled by Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank Corp in 2014.
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.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
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
RSS