Citibank Taiwan Ltd (台灣花旗) yesterday gave an optimistic outlook on its consumer and corporate banking business this year despite an uncertain global economic climate, as more firms in Taiwan would seek to survive seasonal corrections through mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
The world’s two largest economies — the US and China — likely gained progress over some issues in their trade talks last week, but it is difficult for them to reach an agreement on structural issues, such as intellectual property protection, before March 1, when a 90-day truce is due to expire, Citi Taiwan chairman Paulus Mok (莫兆鴻) said at a media gathering in Taipei.
Hence, the US-China trade dispute is likely to persist for a while, and Taiwanese firms must prepare for it and learn that they cannot place too much reliance on the Chinese market, Mok said.
Photo: Grace Kao, Taipei Times
Despite the uncertainty linked to the trade dispute, Citi Taiwan is optimistic about this year, as the bank, with a history of 55 years in the nation, has a solid foundation, the chairman said.
With an eye on the younger generation, the bank would optimize its Web site and apps, and offer a better digital experience for consumers this year, encouraging them to “bank on the hand,” Mok said, adding that the bank plans to hire 60 employees.
The bank not only helped top-notch clients raise funds from the local and international capital markets, but it also advised many significant M&A transactions and completed several deals last year, including strategic loan deals, Citi Taiwan president Christie Chang (張聖心) said.
Last year saw Taiwanese firms become more open to M&A discussions with prospective buyers or sellers, Chang said, adding that she expects this passion to continue this year.
Although Taiwan is a highly competitive market, the bank saw its wealth management and credit card customer bases expand last year, consumer business manager Dennis Hussey said.
He added that the bank has pursued customer-centric, rather than headline, growth, meaning it is not focused on stimulating short-term spending or customer base growth, but cares more if consumers are happy with using Citi Taiwan’s credit cards.
The bank plans to launch a new credit card program to attract new customers, Hussey said.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
Australian singer Kylie Minogue says “nothing compares” to performing live, but becoming an international wine magnate in under six years has been quite a thrill for the Spinning Around star. Minogue launched her first own-label wine in 2020 in partnership with celebrity drinks expert Paul Schaafsma, starting with a basic rose but quickly expanding to include sparkling, no-alcohol and premium rose offerings. The actress and singer has since wracked up sales of around 25 million bottles, with her carefully branded products pitched at low-to mid-range prices in dozens of countries. Britain, Australia and the United States are the biggest markets. “Nothing compares to performing
AUSPICIOUS TIMING: Ostensibly looking to spike the guns of domestic rivals, ByteDance launched the upgrade to coincide with the Lunar New Year China’s ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) has rolled out its Doubao 2.0 model, an upgrade of the country’s most widely used artificial-intelligence (AI) app, the company announced on Saturday. ByteDance is one of several Chinese firms hoping to generate overseas and domestic buzz around its new AI models during the Lunar New Year holiday, which began yesterday, when hundreds of millions of Chinese partake in family gatherings in their hometowns. The company, like rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), was caught off-guard by DeepSeek’s (深度求索) meteoric rise to global fame during last year’s Spring Festival, when Silicon Valley and investors worldwide were
RSS