MOBILE PAYMENTS
TCB, Visa launch service
Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB, 合庫銀行) and Visa Taiwan yesterday implemented the nation’s first standardized, EMV-compliant QR Code payment system as financial institutions seek to tap into the mobile-payment business. The new solution covers the bank’s more than 8,000 acceptance points, the bank said in a statement. The system is to boost the bank’s acceptance footprint, due to its cost-effectiveness as a payment method, TCB chairman Lei Chung-dar (雷仲達) said. Local consumers and overseas travelers will be able to use the same QR Code to make payments wherever the specifications are adopted, Visa Taiwan general manager Marco Ma (麻少華) said.
FINANCE
UBS denies exit plan
UBS Taiwan yesterday issued a statement to dismiss media reports that it plans to pull out of the nation by the end of the year due to sluggish business. “UBS would like to take the opportunity to refute a totally groundless rumor that was circulating in some of the domestic Taiwan media earlier today,” the company said. “Rather, UBS remains fully committed to serving all of its clients in Taiwan and will continue to bolster the depth and breadth of its offering in Taiwan.” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) told a meeting of the Finance Committee that UBS intended to allow its Hong Kong staff to steer the business in Taiwan.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Aten sales decline
Aten International Co Ltd (宏正), which provides information technology infrastructure solutions, yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$393 million (US$12.8 million) for last month, a decrease of 7 percent from the same month last year. The breakdown showed that sales of IT infrastructure access management solutions were down 11 percent last month from a year earlier, while professional audio/video products were down 4 percent. USB products dropped 23 percent. Accumulated sales in the first nine months totaled NT$3.76 billion, an increase of 5 percent year-on-year, led by a 39 percent increase in USB products and a 12 percent increase in audio/video products, Aten said.
ELECTRONICS
Wistron withdraws plan
Contract electronics manufacturer Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday said it is to withdraw a plan to raise capital by issuing global depositary receipts (GDRs). “Due to drastic changes in [the] worldwide political and economic situation, which have hampered the share price, the company is not able to raise fund[s] by Oct. 10, 2018. The company decides to withdraw the GDR fundraising plan,” Wistron said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company in April won approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission to issue between 20.8 million and 26 million GDRs, aiming to raise between US$197.42 million and US$246.78 million.
CEMENT
Prices tipped to stay high
Cement prices and gross profit per tonne should remain high in the final quarter of the year, Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) said yesterday, citing output restrictions in China amid environmental concerns and limited supply as disciplined production remains. Capital Investment said it has retained “buy” ratings on Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) and Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥), which have substantial shares of the Chinese market, with target prices of NT$50 and NT$48 respectively.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
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