A total of 101 Taiwanese employees of nine Taiwanese banks remain in China due to a lockdown, transport restrictions or other reasons, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) and Taiwan Business Bank (臺灣中小企銀), which have branches in Wuhan the epicenter of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, have six and seven Taiwanese staff there respectively, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Sherri Chuang (莊琇媛) said.
Most of them chose not to return to Taiwan, as they were concerned that being quarantined for 14 days would prevent them from returning to Wuhan once their banks resumed operations, she said.
Three employees of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) subsidiary Fubon Bank (China) Co Ltd (富邦華一銀行) returned to Taiwan before the Lunar New Year, she added.
In addition to Wuhan, the local governments of 33 Chinese cities have imposed total or partial lockdowns to contain the outbreak, including Nanjing, Fuzhou and Ningbo, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reported on Wednesday.
There are 88 Taiwanese staff of six banks still in those cities, commission data showed.
Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) topped the list with 29 employees in Nanjing and three in Fuzhou, followed by Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) with 16 in Nanjing, Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行) with 13 in Fuzhou and Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行) with 11 in Ningbo, the data showed.
Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) and Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) also have eight employees each in Fuzhou, the data showed.
“The 101 are healthy and the banks have maintained contact with them,” Chuang said.
As most Taiwanese banks’ operations in China are concentrated on corporate banking services, their employees have less contact with local consumers than those of Chinese banks, she said.
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