SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) chairman Paul Chiu (邱正雄) yesterday tendered his resignation, ending a week-long tenure at the helm of the company.
Chiu said he would resign from the company’s board of directors on Friday and that his replacement would be appointed by the board the same day.
The board has selected a “reputable figure from the financial sector” to succeed him, Chiu said, declining to say who it is.
SinoPac Financial is under investigation for allegedly extending a series of questionable loans to interested parties via its banking and leasing units without adequate collateral and documentation.
SinoPac Financial founder and former chairman Ho Shou-chuan (何壽川) was detained on June 18, and Chiu was appointed interim chairman during an emergency board meeting held the same day.
Chiu was appointed chairman the following day.
Ho has been denied bail and remains in jail.
However, Chiu’s appointment drew criticism from industry observers and others, as he served as chairman and board director at Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) from 2009 to last year, which coincided with the alleged irregularities that are under investigation.
Critics had questioned whether Chiu would be capable of improving oversight at SinoPac Financial, and whether he should be held responsible for the lapses.
Chiu said he has completed the initial phase of the company’s plans to improve its corporate governance, such as forming internal task forces.
The board is to review recommendations submitted by three international accounting and consulting firms, and select one to be implemented, he said.
Chiu also denied the rumor that the company is facing heavy penalties due to delays in a deal to sell SinoPac Bancorp, its US-based banking subsidiary, to Cathay General Bancorp (國泰萬通金控), as it has negotiated an extension until Sept. 20.
Thanks to the government’s and regulators’ support, Bank SinoPac’s and other subsidiaries’ operations have been unaffected by the developments, Chiu said.
There have been no significant cash withdrawals from the bank and its cash flows remains sound, he said.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has