Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打台灣銀行) yesterday entered into a partnership with peer-to-peer lending operator Robo Web Technology Co (瑞保網路科技) to expand its retail banking clientele from high-net-worth individuals to the general public.
The alliance enables borrowers to open accounts and apply for loans without visiting brick-and-mortar branches and came as competition from non-traditional players gains force.
“We aim to reach out to the general public through the strategic cooperation, a departure from the past focus on high-net-worth individuals,” Standard Chartered retail banking head Kate Lin (林素真) told a news conference.
Standard Chartered would continue to pursue affluent clients, but also aims to take advantage of the fast-growing digital banking business, which was valued at US$64 billion in 2015 and could hit US$1 trillion in 2025, Lin said.
Robo Web develops and operates the nation’s largest online peer-to-peer lending platform, LnB (信用市集), which has amassed 37,000 clients and processed loan requests totaling NT$5.1 billion (US$170.61 million) since its launch in March 2016.
The fintech company thrives on commission charges for matching lenders and borrowers at lower borrowing costs than traditional lenders, Robo Web founder and CEO Joanna Yang (楊瑞芬) said.
It has developed a set of criteria to grade the credit profile of borrowers, who are mostly aged between 20 and 50, Yang said, adding that lenders — referred to as investors on the platform — are usually a few years older.
The purpose of LnB is simple: allow people with funding needs to find lenders with ease and convenience over the Internet, which is the basic and core function of a bank, she said.
Standard Chartered has set interest rates at 0.88 percent for the first two months and between 2.99 percent and 16.99 percent from the third month, Lin said, adding that it would charge an extra NT$2,988 in one-off account maintenance fees.
“The offer demonstrates the bank’s seriousness about growing its retail banking business in Taiwan, which ranks third in profitability worldwide only after Hong Kong and Singapore,” Lin said.
Standard Chartered would consider extending low interest rates depending on customer feedback, she said.
In practice, LnB would pass details of interested borrowers to Standard Chartered, which could settle loan requests within 24 hours, she added.
The lending platform says it can approve loan applications within at least three-and-a-half minutes.
Standard Chartered is to spend US$2 million to establish its third iWealth center in Taoyuan by the end of this year to meet the growing demand for digital services, Lin said.
Its iWealth centers target affluent Taiwanese with net worths of at least NT$3 million who can sip expensive tea, read magazines and use iPads at the facilities for financial consultations.
NO VIRUS BLUES: A SEMI Taiwan official said that the virus does not slow down the global semiconductor industry’s investment in manufacturing equipment The production value of the nation’s semiconductor industry is expected to grow 16.7 percent this year from last year, outpacing the global industry’s 3.3 percent growth, industry association SEMI said yesterday. That would help Taiwan safeguard its second spot in the global semiconductor market with a production value of more than NT$3 trillion (US$102.73 billion), SEMI Taiwan president Terry Tsao (曹世綸) told a media briefing in Taipei for the Semicon Taiwan trade show beginning today. The global semiconductor industry’s production value is expected to increase to US$426 billion this year, SEMI said. In terms of semiconductor equipment investment, equipment billings from Taiwanese firms
Intel Corp has received licenses from US authorities to continue supplying certain products to Huawei Technologies Co (華為), a company spokesman said yesterday. Washington has been pushing governments around to world to squeeze out Huawei, saying that the telecom giant would hand data to Beijing for espionage. From Monday last week, new curbs have barred US companies from supplying or servicing Huawei. This week, the state-backed China Securities Journal reported that Intel had received permission to supply Huawei. China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), which uses US-origin equipment to make chips for Huawei and other companies, last week confirmed that it had sought
INVEST IN TAIWAN: A metal components casting firm and the world’s largest maker of aluminum bicycle rims also obtained approvals to join the program Solar Applied Materials Technology Co (SOLAR, 光洋應用材料), a part of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) “green supply chain,” has pledged to invest NT$1 billion (US$34.1 million) to build a new plant at the Tainan Technology Industrial Park (台南科技工業區), the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. SOLAR has been collaborating with TSMC to extract precious metals from waste and reuse them as “sputtering target” material in high-end semiconductor manufacturing, a TSMC press release issued in May said. Established in 1978, SOLAR also offers key materials and integrated services to customers in the optoelectronics, information and communications technology, petrochemicals and consumer electronics industries,
‘SWARM TECH’: Joint venture FARobot is to develop autonomous mobile robots that would first be deployed in Hon Hai’s factories to optimize production efficiency Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Adlink Technology Inc (凌華科技) have formed a robotic venture that aims to use “swarm technology” to create robots that can communicate with one another on the factory floor to optimize production efficiency. Hon Hai is Apple Inc’s leading iPhone assembler and the world’s largest contract electronics maker, while Adlink supplies industrial computers and Internet of Things solutions. Through a subsidiary, Hyield Venture Capital Co (鴻揚創投), Hon Hai holds a 51 percent stake in autonomous mobile robot (AMR) developer FARobot (法博智能移動), while Adlink owns the remaining 49 percent. Together, the two companies put up NT$200
RSS