Local banks yesterday launched joint mobile payment services based on QR code technology in a bid to tap the fast-growing financial technology (fintech) business and outcompete foreign payment tools.
“Taiwan Pay aims to provide more convenient, quicker payment services using QR code technology via smartphones, which have become a necessity in daily life,” Deputy Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) told a news conference.
Mobile payments are divided into two camps: one powered by near field communication (NFC) technology and the other using QR code technology, the ministry said.
The ministry spearheaded the development of Taiwan Pay to help the nation become a regional technology hub and to compete with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay.
Unlike foreign mobile payment tools that function like credit cards, Taiwan Pay can issue invoices and will allow users to pay taxes, utility bills and school fees in the near future, Su said.
The incompatibility of different foreign payment services has limited their growth and prevalence, although they have attracted more than 1 million customers since their entry into the local market in the second quarter of the year, he said.
Taiwan Pay hopes to attract 6 million users in its first year, given that it can be used on all smartphone models and brands, the deputy minister said.
Twelve Taiwanese financial institutions — including all eight state-run banks and Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行), Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行), Jih Sun International Commercial Bank (日盛銀行) and O-Bank (王道商業銀行) — are offering clients Taiwan Pay and another 13 are expected to join, Su said.
Community-level lenders, post offices and semi-official financial institutes are also expected to come on board.
“We expect all domestic banks to rally behind Taiwan Pay and aim to expand its reach overseas,” Su said.
Taiwan Pay is limited to debit card use, but is to add credit cards soon, he said.
“Taiwan Pay will gain rapid popularity as it requires low installation costs and guarantees safe transactions,” Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) chairman Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said.
Several retailers, bakeries, department stores and foundations have offered Taiwan Pay users discounts and gifts.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS