Line Financial Taiwan Corp (台灣連線金融科技) yesterday said that it would hold a majority 49.9 percent stake in a planned Web-only bank, with the remaining 40.1 percent stake held by four financial institutions.
Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) would be the second-biggest shareholder with a 25.1 percent stake, while CTBC Bank (中信銀行), Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打台灣銀行) and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) would each hold 5 percent, Line Financial said.
Line Financial did not identify the companies with shares in the remaining 10 percent, but local media have reported that Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) would each hold 5 percent.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) in August said that non-financial firms would be allowed to hold up to a 60 percent stake in Web-only banks and limited the holdings by financial institutions to 40 percent.
However, it requires at least one financial firm to hold more than a 25 percent stake to ensure that an online bank has sufficient financial expertise.
The FSC is to issue two licenses for Web-only banks by the end of this year.
Line Financial chairman and general manager Roger Chen (陳立人) said in a news release that the firm would leverage its partners’ expertise in risk control and products design as well as compliance and money-laundering control.
The firm would set up a preparation office after all stakeholders officially announce their investments in the online bank, Chen said, without giving a time frame.
Taipei Fubon Bank, which earlier this year bought a 19.99 percent stake in Line Taiwan Ltd’s (台灣連線) subsidiary Line Pay for NT$3.15 billion (US$102 million), yesterday said that it was honored to become Line Financial’s major bank partner.
Taipei Fubon Bank general manager Roman Cheng (程耀輝) said he is confident that the team would be able to provide payment, money transfer, loan, money management and insurance services.
The Line messaging app, with 21 million users in Taiwan, is a great platform for a Web-only bank, he added.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) said that the bank tried without success to gain more than a 5 percent stake.
“Line Financial told us that the Web-only bank will serve as an open platform and it hopes to work with more banks that can make different contributions,” Wu said.
CTBC, which still wants to increase its stake, views the investment as a way to participate in innovative services, Wu said.
Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) and its partners are also seeking on of the licenses.
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day