As digitization of financial services takes hold across international markets, experts yesterday said that efforts aimed at preparing the nation for the coming changes are inadequate and lacking in urgency, in particular in the areas of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and new credit card applications.
Financial Technology Consulting Committee member Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) railed against the Financial Supervisory Commission’s (FSC) plans to establish a special task force to assess the feasibility of P2P lending platforms in Taiwan.
Jan, chairman of online shopping portal PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), expressed his disappointment at the commission’s more conservative stance, maintaining that funds and channels remain abundant.
He said he was alarmed that the commission had listed the possibility that conventional banks could lose their role in facilitating financial services as a concern as competing digitized options emerge.
“The commission’s Banking Bureau must adapt and shift its focus to regulating banking as a behavior as opposed to institutions,” Jan said at the second meeting of the Financial Technology Office since its founding in September.
Jan said that instead of waiting on the task force’s decision, explorations into P2P lending must begin immediately on a limited scale and on an experimental basis by willing businesses under the guidance of regulators, so that early findings can be included in feasibility studies.
“New technology-backed services such as P2P lending will also create a new category of consumer-behavior data that will improve auditing and credit limit assessment,” Jan said, adding that greater access to financing would benefit society.
FSC Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) said that although the commission has not ruled out P2P lending, its deregulatory efforts must conform to guidelines.
Meanwhile, Visa International Taiwan country manager Taiwan Macro Ma (麻少華) said that as the domestic credit card market matures and grows, payment methods need new tools.
Ma said that the existing client base of credit card users could be expanded to other areas such as healthcare and insurance.
He listed examples in South Korea, where consumers and businesses who use credit cards are eligible for tax reductions.
In Taiwan, there is a 2 percent credit card transaction fee, representing a considerable obstacle for its proliferation into other segments, Ma added
“The current one-size-fits-all scheme for credit card fees is not ideal,” he said.
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