CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday tapped its chief risk officer Jack Cheng (鄭泰克) to serve as its president after his predecessor was handed a six-month suspension by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) over a compliance lapse.
The company’s operations would not be affected by the heavy penalties meted out by the commission and that it found the outcome “regretful,” the firm said in a statement late on Tuesday.
CTBC Financial said that after investigators raided its offices on June 8 last year, a decision whether to provide any bail money related to the raid was added to the agenda of a board meeting scheduled to take place later the same day.
As the board had little information about the investigation, the directors gave their approval to the proposal to provide bail based on what they knew at the time.
The measure was aimed at preserving morale at the company, the firm said.
The board of directors was briefed on the handling of the bail money on Aug. 25 last year and it found no irregularities in the proceedings.
CTBC Financial president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) did not mislead the board of directors or overstep his authority as claimed by the regulator, the firm said, adding that the move did not violate the firm’s internal control and governance rules.
All of the bail money was reimbursed on June 13 last year, the first business day following the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the company said.
The company also said that prior to the incident, it had never before provided bail money.
FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday presented an award recognizing the nation’s best brands to CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) despite meting out the penalties to the parent company the previous day.
The infraction committed by CTBC Financial was unrelated to CTBC Bank, Koo said, adding that it is a well-run lender.
Koo said that he would continue to have zero tolerance for compliance lapses, in particular for repeat offenders.
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