Four state-run banks have been using equipment manufactured by Huawei Technologies Co (華為) at their domestic and overseas branches, New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said yesterday, adding that more banks might be using the Chinese telecom giant’s gear, as some lenders declined to respond to a query from his office.
The four banks are Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), Hsu told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee.
The four banks and Taiwan Business Bank (台企銀) also use equipment made by China’s Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co (杭州海康威視數字技術), the lawmaker said, urging the government to address the issue.
The use of Huawei’s equipment raised national security concerns after several governments imposed bans on the Chinese company.
Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) this month said that all local banks use components made by IBM Corp in their servers, which he called their “core equipment.”
The four banks use Huawei’s products — including routers, monitoring system, end devices, modems and firewall devices — at their branches in Shanghai, Fuzhou and Kunshan, while Bank of Taiwan uses the Chinese firm’s gear in its Singapore branch, Hsu said.
Hangzhou Hikvision’s products are used at 31 branches in Taiwan, he added.
Koo said the devices are not as important as the core equipment, but the commission would ask all banks to pay attention to information security, for example by conducting virus scans.
Hsu disagreed, saying Taiwan Cooperative Bank, which uses Huawei’s firewall devices, could not detect a virus if the Chinese firm really has security problems.
The regulations do not forbid private banks from using Huawei’s products, while some rules set by the National Communications Commission only place restrictions on network communications equipment, Koo told reporters.
State-owned banks must comply with the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法), he added.
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