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.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the