The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a draft act to allow fintech businesses to test their services and exempt them from legal restrictions for up to 18 months, a move expected to boost the nation’s fintech innovations.
The bill is now awaiting approval by the legislature.
The draft act would set up a “regulatory sandbox,” which would provide fintech businesses with an environment that allows them to experiment with new financial products and services through legal exemptions, with a few exceptions.
Businesses expected to apply for the program include providers of digital insurance services, peer-to-peer lending, blockchain technology, identification verification technology, big data analytics, third-party payment systems and backend management systems, Financial Supervisory Commission Vice Chairman Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂) said.
Businesses will be allowed to test their innovations in the “sandbox” for one year with an extension period of six months, Cheng said.
To qualify, services and technologies should either improve the efficiency of financial services, lower operating cost or enhance consumer rights, he said.
Authorities would review the experiments and help develop business opportunities for promising innovations, or revise regulatory frameworks to accommodate new forms of financial services, he added.
The proposed “sandbox” protections do not exempt companies from money-laundering and consumer protection laws, and fintech businesses, especially providers of international third-party payment service, have to make sure that their operations are in full compliance with those laws, Cheng said.
Start-ups interested in providing foreign-exchange services should seek permission from the central bank, Cheng added.
“Innovative financial technologies could be a major driver of the financial industry, as well as other sectors, and Taiwan cannot afford to fall behind other countries in the development of financial technology, or it would risk its competitiveness and overall industrial development,” Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said.
Lin asked the commission to communicate with legislators to ensure a swift passage of the draft act.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last