Line Corp, creator of the Line messaging app, yesterday announced plans to set up a preparation office for Line Financial Taiwan Corp (台灣連線金融科技), which is seeking to team up with local lenders to create a digital bank.
Line regional chief Liu I-cheng (劉奕成) announced the plans at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the technology firm agreed to sell a 30 percent stake to two Taiwanese lenders.
“We aim to join hands with local financial institutions to set up Line Bank, a Web-only bank that will offer new financial services and products,” Liu said.
Photo: CNA
Line Financial would not own more than 50 percent of Line Bank and will limit the number of partners to five in keeping with local regulations, he said.
The bank is to take deposits, provide loans, and sell mutual funds and insurance policies, but will not issue credit cards, launch new financial products or establish its own securities units, he said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has indicated room for two Internet-only lenders in the nation and is drafting rules on their requirements and operations so interested parties can file applications later this year and start services by the end of next year.
Existing Line Pay partners might not necessarily have priority to be major shareholders of Line Bank, although they might be more familiar with Line products, Liu said.
Line Pay in August 2015 entered the local e-payment market and now has 3 million users, making it the most popular e-payment platform.
The company’s board on Wednesday approved plans to sell a 19.9 percent stake to Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行) for NT$3.16 billion (US$103.4 million) and a 10 percent stake to Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) for NT$1.58 billion. The share sales need regulatory approval.
Line Pay reportedly sought unsuccessfully to sell stakes to Cathay United Bank (國泰世華), CTBC Bank (中信銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) and E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) at much higher prices.
Line Financial is to hire 150 people in fields such as legal compliance, risk management, financial technology and anti-money laundering, Liu said.
In related news, video game developer Soft-World International Corp (智冠) yesterday said its payment arm, Pay2Go Technology Corp (智付寶), has gained regulatory approval to merge with ezPay Taiwan Co (台灣電子支付) through a share swap scheme.
According to the plan, a share in Pay2Go is to be converted to one ezPay Taiwan share and the latter firm will cease to exist, Soft-World said, adding that the company will be called ezPay (簡單付).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure