Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) began its integration effort following its acquisition of Bank of Overseas Chinese (BOOC, 華僑銀行) by opening its first Citigold Wealth Management center yesterday in Jhongli (中壢), Taoyuan County.
Citibank acquired BOOC last December after a NT$13.9 billion (US$457 million) cash buyout, after the US banking giant was attracted to the 1 million additional customers that BOOC could bring to it.
Citigold is a global initiative to increase Citibank’s worldwide wealth management services and Jhongli is the first of BOOC’s 55 branches in Taiwan to have a Citigold center.
“The Jhongli location was chosen for its close proximity to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and for its heritage in commerce. With the government redevelopment, we expect Jhongli to become a thriving community. After all, Jhongli was where name brand companies such as Kuai Kuai Co (乖乖), Kimlan Foods Ltd (金蘭食品) and Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) were founded” Victor Kuan (管國霖), country business manager of Citibank, said at the launch yesterday.
Citibank has transferred its focus from its credit card business to wealth management in recent years in light of a declining credit card market and falling profitability.
Financial Supervisory Commission data showed Citibank ranked No. 3 in the first five months of the year with accumulated earnings before interest and taxes of NT$7.24 billion, behind First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) with NT$7.9 billion and Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀) with NT$7.6 billion.
The minimum account opening amount for a Citigold account is NT$3 million, Kuan said.
“There are already 10,000 existing BOOC customers in Jhongli who meet this requirement. Our goal is to service them first, rather than to expand the customer base,” he said.
At the Jhongli center there will be six financial advisers to service individual wealth management clients and two financial advisers to service corporate wealth management clients. The cost of the face-lift at the center was said to be “way more than NT$20 million” by Kuan.
Citibank plans to keep all of BOOC’s 55 outlets in their current locations for now. If relocation is required, that location would be within the same city, the bank said.
As Citibank continues to integrate BOOC, Kuan hopes to have 10 more renovations (including Citigold centers) and two relocations completed by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Citibank Taiwan is also introducing a Pre-Arrangement Banking Service, which is a call center for Taiwanese clients who are traveling abroad for business or study and have queries regarding opening overseas accounts.
The seizure of one of the largest known mercury shipments in history, moving from mines in Mexico to illegal Amazon gold mining zones, exposes the wide use of the toxic metal in the rainforest, according to authorities. Peru’s customs agency, SUNAT, found 4 tonnes of illegal mercury in Lima’s port district of Callao, according to a report by the non-profit Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA). “This SUNAT intervention has prevented this chemical from having a serious impact on people’s health and the environment, as can be seen in several areas of the country devastated by the illegal use of mercury and illicit activities,”
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
Taiwan’s property transactions in the first half of this year fell 26.4 percent year-on-year to about 130,000 units, as credit controls and mortgage restrictions dampened demand, data from the Ministry of the Interior showed yesterday. Keelung saw the steepest decline, with transactions plummeting 45.6 percent to just 2,041 units — the lowest since the ministry began its survey in 2006. In contrast, Miaoli County was the only region to experience year-on-year growth, with transactions rising 2.4 percent to 3,229 units. Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) attributed the increase in deals in Miaoli, particularly Jhunan (竹南) and Toufen (頭份) townships, to spillover demand
RSS