Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) yesterday said that the commission would establish a new office to oversee the integration of resources for boosting development of financial technology (fintech) before the end of this month.
“We must prepare for the disruptive innovations that are coming and might bring sweeping changes to the financial sector. Therefore, the government must take the lead in integrating public and private-sector resources for fintech development,” Tseng said by telephone.
The looming challenges facing the financial sector are similar to those camera and film companies faced during the sweeping transition from film to digital photography.
“Given the scale of the nation’s financial institutions, we must avoid redundant development efforts by disparate companies,” Tseng said.
Tseng said that he would serve as director of the fintech office, which would be staffed by six to eight people drawn from the commission’s bureaus.
The office would also have an advisory committee made up of 15 to 20 experts drawn from the financial and technology sectors and it would conduct quarterly review meetings, he said.
The aim of the office is to develop solutions for emerging niches, including mobile and third-party payment, Web-based financing, investments and insurance policy sales, cloud computing services, crowd funding, the Internet of Things, data security and big data applications, he said.
The commission’s move follows the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s establishment of a FinTech & Innovation Group last month, while similar efforts have been launched by US-based Financial Services Roundtable, and British authorities seek to preserve the London and Wall Street’s positions as major international financial hubs.
Tseng said that it was too early to list what specific business applications the office would focus on, as it would concentrate first on building vital technologies and infrastructure such as data centers that could provide the foundation for innovations and bolster the competitiveness of Taiwan’s financial sector.
Web-based crowdfunding and automated investment and wealth management advisory services have already encroached upon territory previously dominated by heavyweight institutions, Tseng said.
The commission also plans to establish a NT$1 billion (US$30.5 million) fintech startup incubator fund from private-sector contributions.
Meanwhile, Tseng reiterated that he fully supports Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) call to reform the securities transaction tax and capital gains tax, instead of KMT Legislator Lo Ming-tsai’s (羅明才) proposal to eliminate the taxes.
“The market cannot get any worse than it is now, and further deadlock on the matter is no longer a cause for uncertainty,” Tseng said.
The legislature failed to complete the second reading of the stocks tax bill.
The TAIEX yesterday lost 0.57 percent to close at 8,259.99 points, with turnover of NT$68.79 billion, far below the optimal range of NT$120 billion to NT$130 billion that Tseng has said that he hopes to see.
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