The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday approved Taiwan Cooperative Bank’s (TCB, 合作金庫銀行) application to expand into a financial holding company, thereby establishing the nation’s fourth-largest financial service provider by asset size.
The new financial holding company is slated to come into being on Dec. 1 after the state-run TCB merges with Cooperative Asset Management Corp (合庫資產管理) and Taiwan Cooperative Bills Finance Corp (合庫票券) through a share swap, FSC banking bureau deputy director-general Jean Chiu (邱淑貞) told a media briefing.
The new financial holding company will have planned capital of NT$120 billion (US$3.92 billion) and become Taiwan’s 15th listed financial conglomerate with assets totaling NT$2.68 trillion and capital valued at NT$120 billion, Chiu said.
TCB has more than 300 branches nationwide and is 36.83 percent owned by the Ministry of Finance. The company will spin off its brokerage unit to pave the way for the creation of a new -securities house on Dec. 2 to meet cross--sector business requirements, Chiu said.
As part of that process, TCB will also transfer its 51 percent stake in BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽), a joint venture with BNP Paribas, to the holding company in the first quarter of next year, Chiu said.
TCB financial holding company will be the latest entrant into the business, following the formation of the nation’s largest financial services holding company, the unlisted Taiwan Financial Holding Co (TFH, 臺灣金控), on Jan. 1, 2008, as part of the government’s promotion of financial sector mergers and acquisitions.
In a related development, the commission yesterday fined Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), a subsidiary of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), NT$3.2 billion for telemarketing and disclosure rule violations.
Cathay Life must submit a plan to the FSC within a month, detailing how it will plans to reprimand those employees responsible and strengthen internal controls, the commission said.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
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).
RSS