Financial regulators must act fast to prepare for the push by US tech giants such as Facebook Inc into the financial system, European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said yesterday.
“It’s out of the question to allow them to develop in a regulatory void for their financial service activities, because it’s just too dangerous,” the former deputy director-general of the French Treasury said at annual economic conference in Aix-en-Provence, France. “We have to move more quickly than we’ve been able to do up until now.”
Facebook’s plan for a digital currency called Libra has policymakers scrambling. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said the bank approaches it “with an open mind, but not an open door.”
The plan has also drawn fire in Washington, with more than 30 groups influential with Democrats demanding a halt to the project to deal with the “profound questions” it raises.
David Marcus, chief executive of Facebook’s blockchain subsidiary Calibra, is to testify before the US Congress this month on the initiative.
Coeure said that the development of digital currencies is exposing deficiencies in existing regulation and the failure of the banking system to adopt new technology.
“All these projects are a rather useful wake-up call for regulators and public authorities, as they encourage us to raise a number of questions and might make us improve the way we do things,” he said.
He also told reporters on the sidelines of the conference that IMF managing director Christine Lagarde is “uniquely qualified” to lead the ECB in the face of challenges from both inside and outside the eurozone, adding: “She knows how the global economy works. She knows how Europe works. And she knows how to talk to financial markets.”
Shiina Ito has had fewer Chinese customers at her Tokyo jewelry shop since Beijing issued a travel warning in the wake of a diplomatic spat, but she said she was not concerned. A souring of Tokyo-Beijing relations this month, following remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan, has fueled concerns about the impact on the ritzy boutiques, noodle joints and hotels where holidaymakers spend their cash. However, businesses in Tokyo largely shrugged off any anxiety. “Since there are fewer Chinese customers, it’s become a bit easier for Japanese shoppers to visit, so our sales haven’t really dropped,” Ito
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) and the company’s former chairman, Mark Liu (劉德音), both received the Robert N. Noyce Award -- the semiconductor industry’s highest honor -- in San Jose, California, on Thursday (local time). Speaking at the award event, Liu, who retired last year, expressed gratitude to his wife, his dissertation advisor at the University of California, Berkeley, his supervisors at AT&T Bell Laboratories -- where he worked on optical fiber communication systems before joining TSMC, TSMC partners, and industry colleagues. Liu said that working alongside TSMC
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