FSC inks MOU with Dubai
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial supervision and cooperation with the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
The pact was signed by commission Chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹) and Dubai Financial Services Authority Chief Executive David Knott, the commission said.
It expects the MOUs to help ensure investors’ interests and help facilitate Taiwanese financial institutions’ overseas business development, the statement said.
Asian credit solid: Moody’s
Asian governments’ guarantees of bank deposits are unlikely to hurt their credit ratings because the sovereigns have enough fiscal strength to absorb any losses, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.
Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia extended deposit safeguards last month to shore up confidence as global bank losses widened. Hong Kong’s three-month interbank rate has fallen to 2.55 percent, almost half the level when the central bank made its pledge on Oct. 14.
“All of these countries have current account surpluses and are net creditor nations with substantial foreign currency reserves,” Moody’s said in a report.
Chunghwa cuts Internet fees
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday it planned to cut its charges for Internet access by an average of nearly 9 percent to help customers reduce their expenses.
The phone company cut the charge for high-speed Internet access via fiber optical by 15.38 percent from NT$650 a month to NT$550.
While the company planned to cut its monthly charge for its ADSL service enabling downloading speed of 2 megabyte per second by 3 percent from NT$440 to NT$429. The 2M users make up the biggest portion of the company’s 4.32 million Internet access subscribers.
The new price tariff will take effect later this month.
Foreign reserves shrink
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves shrank by another US$2.98 billion to US$278.15 billion at the end of last month on continued foreign capital outflows, the central bank said yesterday.
Despite the drop, Taiwan’s reserves are still the fourth largest in the world, next only to China, Japan and Russia.
Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), deputy director-general of the central bank’s department of foreign exchange, said there were large foreign capital inflows at the end of last month, but they failed to offset outflows earlier in the month.
Lin said the monthly figure also marked an increase of US7.84 billion from a year ago.
Computer viruses up 20 fold
Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), the world’s leading anti-virus software provider, said yesterday that the growth of computer viruses has increased by 20 fold since 2005. The firm said a new virus surfaces every four seconds, making it next to impossible to ward off attacks.
“Rather than destroying your computer and causing havoc in your life, computer hackers now are only interested in profiteering from stolen personal information,” Bob Hung (洪偉金), general manager at Trend Micro business unit, told a media briefing.
The software developer said it utilized cloud computing to store its multi-layer protection remotely in “the clouds,” which saved 70 percent of users’ computer space.
NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.039 to close at NT$32.830. A total of US$1.24 billion changed hands.
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ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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