Citigroup Inc, the world's biggest financial services company, was ordered to stop taking business at its Japan trust bank, six months after it said the unit would close because of compliance problems.
Cititrust and Banking Corp can't accept new business after May 2, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said. Citigroup said in October it would close the unit, which provides investment management and real-estate advisory services in the world's second-largest economy.
"We can't leave it to the bank to complete the shutdown, judging from its attitude to inspections and business," the FSA said in a statement yesterday. Regulators won't allow the bank to take on any new business before it closes.
Japan's regulators in September told Citigroup to close its private bank for other compliance breaches.
The New York-based lender is facing restrictions in Japan at a time when Mizuho Financial Group Inc, the nation's biggest bank, and other local firms are stepping up efforts to manage as much as US$13 trillion of financial assets held by individuals.
Citigroup Chief Executive Charles Prince met with Japanese regulators in October to apologize for breaches, including failure to make proper checks against money laundering.
Regulators said the trust bank failed to improve monitoring and controls even after ordered to do so in August 2001, according to the statement.
The unit ran an unlicensed asset-management business hidden from inspectors and concluded real-estate transactions devised to forge accounts, the agency said.
In November, Douglas Peterson, Citibank Japan's new chief executive, apologized at a parliamentary committee and said 14 officers have been fired, including eight managing directors, for their dubious actions.
Citigroup plans to close the Japan trust business, which employs 150 people, because there were "internal control, compliance and governance issues in that subsidiary," the bank said in October.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)