The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday said it plans to introduce an adult custodial system through investment trust companies to help the nation’s aging population.
Taiwan has become an “aged society,” meaning that more than 14 percent of its population is older than 65 and is to become a hyper-aged society within eight years, so the FSC began in 2016 to encourage investment firms to make trust funds available to senior citizens with the aim of protecting their assets, FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said at a seminar held by the Trust Association yesterday in Taipei.
However, while general trust funds are common, accounting for 85 percent of total investments, trust funds for older people are not, remaining below 10 percent, Koo said.
Asked for a growth target, Koo said it is difficult to set a number, but he hopes to boost the number of trust funds for senior citizens by having trust companies add an adult custodial system to their services, adding that he has discussed amending the Family Act (家事事件法) with the Judicial Yuan.
“In the past, society had the concept of people raising children to take care of them in their old age, but that concept appears to have fallen out of fashion,” Koo said.
People should manage their assets before they reach old age, he said.
Older people would benefit from an adult custodial system, Koo said.
That way, if they lacked the necessary mental capacity, their assets would be protected by their designated custodian and supervised by their lawyer, he added.
As of June, 25 trust companies in Taiwan made trust funds available to seniors and the mentally or physically disadvantaged, with the accumulated principal totaling NT$13.6 billion (US$440.84 million), FSC data showed.
Although trust fund for older people are not that popular in Taiwan, older consumers in Japan are embracing the concept, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp (三菱UFJ 信託銀行) told the seminar.
The bank said that the total amount in education trust funds in Japan surpassed US$1 trillion in 2013, with more than 1 million applications, as older people hope to use part of their money to pay for their grandchildren’s educations.
Compared with younger customers, older people tend to have difficulty making choices, preferring to safeguard their assets, the bank said, adding that seniors also seem to be easily swayed by exaggerated advertising claims, so it is important to offer them the right customized products and services.
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