The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday stood firm on its position that financial institutions should lead the management of online banks.
“We wish to see financial statements for Web-only banks published as a subsidiary under a financial company,” FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
There could be room to reduce the mandatory stake that financial institutions must hold in online banks from half to 40 percent, Koo said, following protests by technology companies that the requirement favors financial sector incumbents and would stifle innovation.
Photo: Wang Sung-yi, Taipei Times
“We still want financial companies to have the most influence over the management of online banks — that has not changed,” Koo said, amid concerns that the move would mean that non-financial companies could hold stakes of up to 60 percent.
Financial companies should be the biggest single shareholder in Web-only banks and hold a stake of at least 25 percent, he said.
The commission has said that online banks should be led by industry incumbents, as they are familiar with compliance requirements to prevent money laundering and enhance information security.
At least three teams of financial and non-financial companies have voiced their intention to compete for two Web-only banking licenses when the application process begins next month.
Although non-financial shareholders in an online bank can collectively own 60 percent, a financial institution, as the biggest shareholder, reserves the right to exert influence over management and to include the venture on its financial reports, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Jean Chiu (邱淑真) told a news conference following a closed-door meeting with company executives to gather opinions on the commission’s plan to develop the financial sector.
The commission is mulling further deregulation to bring the nation’s investment platforms and environment up to speed with international hubs such as Hong Kong, Chiu said.
The FSC has received companies’ suggestions and would continue to work with industry associations to ease rules, such as allowing insurers and banks to offer new services like trusts and power of attorney for the elderly, as well as raising caps on a number of investment vehicles, Chiu said.
Overall, the plan aims to expand the scale of local financial companies and help them broaden their global networks to better serve Taiwanese companies operating around the world, she said.
In addition, the commission wishes to leverage the nation’s financial sector to promote growth in other industries and to attract foreign investment, she said.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS