O-Bank (王道商業銀行) on Monday said that its digitally focused strategy has attracted more than 35,000 new accounts, while 10,000 investment trust accounts have opted to use the lender’s “robo-advisory service.”
The majority of clients who participated in the bank’s month-long automated advisory pilot program earned monthly returns of between 1.8 percent and 2 percent, the company said.
The service employs an algorithm that recommends investment targets according to a client’s preferred risk profile, O-Bank said, adding that those with more appetite for risk are directed toward equity funds, while more conservative clients are advised to invest in bonds and foreign currency funds.
The bank is launching the robo-advisory service for fixed monthly investment installments of between NT$3,000 and NT$30,000 (US$98 and US$981) at between NT$19 and NT$49 per month, with a NT$3 million cap on the assets managed per account, it said.
“O-Bank aims to meet the needs of clients younger than 35,” chief retail banking officer and senior executive vice president Jerry Sung (宋靖仁) said at a news conference.
Unlike its peers, the company has no immediate plans to offer credit cards, Sung said, adding that O-Bank’s debit cards offer cash-back rewards that are more attractive to its target audience.
Debit card spending has risen from NT$30 million to NT$3 billion per month since the company was founded in January, the lender said.
O-Bank has introduced “mini-loans” of NT$10,000, NT$30,000 and NT$50,000 with a 6.66 percent interest rate, which it said is more favorable for borrowers compared with revolving credit loans.
Most clients who use the robo-advisory service are men aged between 30 and 40 who work in the technology or manufacturing sectors, Sung said, adding that students aged 23 to 24 have also shown an interest in the service.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day