The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday stood firm on its position that financial institutions should lead the management of online banks.
“We wish to see financial statements for Web-only banks published as a subsidiary under a financial company,” FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
There could be room to reduce the mandatory stake that financial institutions must hold in online banks from half to 40 percent, Koo said, following protests by technology companies that the requirement favors financial sector incumbents and would stifle innovation.
Photo: Wang Sung-yi, Taipei Times
“We still want financial companies to have the most influence over the management of online banks — that has not changed,” Koo said, amid concerns that the move would mean that non-financial companies could hold stakes of up to 60 percent.
Financial companies should be the biggest single shareholder in Web-only banks and hold a stake of at least 25 percent, he said.
The commission has said that online banks should be led by industry incumbents, as they are familiar with compliance requirements to prevent money laundering and enhance information security.
At least three teams of financial and non-financial companies have voiced their intention to compete for two Web-only banking licenses when the application process begins next month.
Although non-financial shareholders in an online bank can collectively own 60 percent, a financial institution, as the biggest shareholder, reserves the right to exert influence over management and to include the venture on its financial reports, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Jean Chiu (邱淑真) told a news conference following a closed-door meeting with company executives to gather opinions on the commission’s plan to develop the financial sector.
The commission is mulling further deregulation to bring the nation’s investment platforms and environment up to speed with international hubs such as Hong Kong, Chiu said.
The FSC has received companies’ suggestions and would continue to work with industry associations to ease rules, such as allowing insurers and banks to offer new services like trusts and power of attorney for the elderly, as well as raising caps on a number of investment vehicles, Chiu said.
Overall, the plan aims to expand the scale of local financial companies and help them broaden their global networks to better serve Taiwanese companies operating around the world, she said.
In addition, the commission wishes to leverage the nation’s financial sector to promote growth in other industries and to attract foreign investment, she said.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts