Domestic non-life insurers are aiming to expand their hold on overseas markets after gaining the central bank’s approval to operate foreign currency-denominated businesses via their offshore insurance units (OIUs).
OIUs give firms access to foreign individuals and institutional clients and the arrangement comes with a 10-year tax exemption.
The central bank on Thursday approved Fubon Insurance Co’s (富邦產險) new foreign exchange businesses after approving Cathay Century Insurance Co (國泰世紀產險) earlier this month, about one year after the Financial Supervisory Commission opened up OIUs for domestic non-life insurers.
Cathay Century will initially focus on serving institutional clients’ general insurance and reinsurance needs, and gradually grow its OIU business by leveraging the footholds established by the firm’s parent company, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), said Kevin Kuo (郭書彬), an OIU manager at Cathay Century.
“The tax incentives will allow for very competitive pricing on upcoming OIU products and services offerings,” Kuo said on Thursday.
In the January-to-July period, 14 insurers with OIU operations collected US$15.33 million in premiums, according to commission data.
Including reinsurance premiums, total collections were tallied at US$42.76 million during the period, the data showed.
Cathay Century posted a total net income of NT$2.1 billion (US$66.42 million) in the first seven months, markedly higher than the NT$350 million it reported during the same period last year, while Fubon Insurance’s total net income fell from NT$2.29 billion to NT$2.04 billion over the same period.
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
For the second year in a row, a Brazilian movie has wowed international audiences and critics, securing multiple Oscar nominations and drawing fresh interest in the Latin American giant’s film industry. Experts say the success of The Secret Agent, which has won four Oscar nominations, a year after I Am Still Here won Brazil its first Oscar, is no fluke, with a bit of a push from the country’s political climate. “This is neither a coincidence nor a miracle. It is the result of a lot of work, consistent policies, and, of course, talent,” Ilda Santiago, director of the Rio International Film
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
IShowSpeed, a 21-year-old African-American influencer, has raced a cheetah, leapt with Maasai warriors and drawn huge crowds in a month-long tour of Africa that has also busted cliches about the continent. The YouTube and Twitch star’s tour, which started on Dec. 29 last year, took him to 20 countries, showing his tens of millions of followers a different side of Africa as he visited a diamond mine in Botswana, discovered Ethiopia’s rich cuisine and attended the Africa Cup of Nations football final in Morocco. IShowSpeed — born in Cincinnati, Ohio as Darren Jason Watkins Jr. — is one of the most followed
RSS