China has approved the setting up of three private banks, including one by Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), the industry regulator said yesterday, in a long-awaited economic reform aimed at bringing competition to state banking giants.
Previously, China had just two privately-owned banks, Minsheng Bank (民生銀行) and Ping An Bank (平安銀行), according to state media.
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said it had approved private banks in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, the northern port city of Tianjin and the eastern city of Wenzhou, which is known as the cradle of private enterprise in China.
The move followed a declaration by the government in March that it would reform China’s banking sector, which is dominated by four state-owned banks — though all of them have minority shares listed on the stock market.
Tencent said it would take a leading role in the establishment of a new bank in Shenzhen, where it is also headquartered.
Two local investment firms, Shenzhen Baiyeyuan Investment Co (深圳百業源投資) and Shenzhen Liye Group (深圳立業集團), are to fund the new bank along with Tencent, the CBRC said, adding that the new lender would be tailored for retail customers and small firms.
Chint Group (正泰集團), an electrical equipment producer, and Huafon Group (華峰集團), whose business ranges from new materials to finance, are to sponsor the Wenzhou bank, while Maigou Group (麥購集團) and Huabei Group (華北集團) will set up the third bank in Tianjin with a focus on corporate banking.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by