The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) would soon approve three financial technology (fintech) sandbox experiments involving insurance sales, blockchain technology and fund management, FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday.
The commission would allow ezTravel Co (易遊網) to sell travel insurance policies provided by Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) on its Web site, exempting it from regulations on selling insurance, Koo said.
People can only purchase policies online from insurers’ Web sites, but in the experiment, they would be able to choose policies and pay the premiums directly to EzTravel, Koo said.
However, EzTravel cannot spend the premiums freely and must deposit them in a dedicated bank account and transfer them to Cathay Life on a regular basis, he said.
EzTravel would not be allowed to sell other kinds of insurance, he added.
If the experiment makes it more convenient for people to purchase travel insurance online, the commission would amend regulations to allow more institutions to cooperate with insurers, Koo said.
Second, the FSC would allow Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行) and Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) to use blockchain technology in their domestic fund transfer and payment services, and to address information flows, Koo said.
As domestic fund transfer and payment services are already fast and convenient, they are not expected to be any faster in the experiment, but the banks could check if the blockchain technology is viable, Department of Planning Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Only clients of the two banks can take part in the experiment, Lin said.
If the technology is proven to be reliable, the commission might allow the banks to adopt the technology in their remittance service, he said.
Remittances, which usually take a few days if conducted through banks, are expected to be faster with the help of blockchain technology, Lin added.
Third, the commission said it would allow How-Investech Inc (好好投資科技), a financial technology company, to partner with Far Eastern International Bank (遠東商銀) to provide new fund management services, Koo said.
Customers who have purchased fund products offered by the bank would be able to exchange their products with those of other customers without paying redemption fees, Koo said, adding that the company would also use blockchain technology in the experiment.
The commission has approved the applications for the experiments and would make an official announcement soon, including the number of participants and the amount of exposure, Koo said.
UNCONVINCING: The US Congress questioned whether the company’s Chinese owners pose a national security risk and how the app might influence young users TikTok chief executive officer Shou Chew (周受資), confronted with an unforgiving, distrustful US Congress, tried to give answers in his testimony on Thursday that avoided offending either the US government or China. However, his evasiveness left Congress unsatisfied, with representatives hungrier than ever to punish TikTok for ties to its parent company ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), based in Beijing. He did not bring his company any closer to a resolution. Politically, TikTok is in a tougher spot. Its executives had been discussing divesting from ByteDance to resolve US national security concerns, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. However, China this week said
Sanofi SA’s drug Dupixent succeeded in a late-stage trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), raising the odds that the blockbuster would be the first biologic medicine cleared to treat the lung disorder. Dupixent, which is already prescribed for asthma and some skin conditions, showed a 30 percent reduction in the rate at which patients’ COPD worsened compared with those who received a placebo during the stage-three Boreas trial, the company said in a statement yesterday. The positive data could herald a new era of cutting-edge treatments for the life-threatening respiratory affliction and provide another major boost in demand for the French
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) has replaced more than 13,000 parts in its products that were hit by US trade sanctions, the Chinese tech giant’s founder said, according to a speech transcript from last month posted on Friday by a Chinese university. Ren Zhengfei (任正非) said Huawei had over the past three years replaced the 13,000 components with domestic Chinese substitutes, and had redesigned 4,000 circuit boards for its products, the transcript posted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University said. “As of now, our circuit board [production] has stabilized, because we have a supply of domestically produced components,” Ren said. He did not give details
SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT: The international trade group said the sector would recover from a slump, with spending expected to rise 4.2 percent to US$24.9 billion Taiwan is to retain its position as the top spender on semiconductor front-end equipment and facilities next year, with spending expected to increase 4.2 percent year-on-year to US$24.9 billion, international trade group SEMI said yesterday. The spending forecast matches an expected recovery in global semiconductor equipment and facilities investment next year, it said. International equipment spending is to return to growth next year, SEMI said in a report, forecasting 21 percent growth to US$92 billion. The expansion would manly be driven by robust demand for semiconductors in the automotive and high-performance computing segments, the association said. “This quarter’s SEMI World Fab Forecast update
RSS