Details on banks in Taiwan and China opening outlets on the opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait could be discussed after memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on financial supervisory cooperation between the two sides come into effect on Jan. 15, Taiwan’s chief financial regulator said yesterday.
Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) told lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan that Taiwan and China would develop respective standards for their banks to follow when establishing footholds across the Strait.
Local banks that want to set up operations in China will need to be rated as “good” after factoring in their capital adequacy ratio, non-performing loan (NPL) ratio and NPL coverage ratio, Chen said.
Asked about when banks in Taiwan will be allowed to provide yuan deposit services, Chen said only that the time would be ripe once the number of Chinese visitors to Taiwan “reaches a certain level.”
As for a currency settlement system agreement between Taiwan and China slated to be signed before a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) is sealed, Chen said that in the initial stage, banks on both sides would provide services for the conversion of Taiwanese and Chinese currency in cash, and later provide bank account services.
Chen said the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp would review an imbalance in supply and demand in response to lawmaker speculation that the prices of Taiwan Depository Receipts (TDR) listed by overseas Taiwanese enterprises on the local market have been inflated.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,