FINTECH
FSC signs cooperation pact
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has signed a financial technology cooperation agreement with eight of the members of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA). The agreement aims to facilitate cooperation in fintech development by gaining access to the work of the CSA Regulatory Sandbox Initiative and the FSC FinTech Regulatory Sandbox, the commission said in a statement on Thursday. The agreement should enable financial regulators from Taiwan and Canada to refer start-ups to their counterparts, provide support to allow the regulatory system in each jurisdiction to be better understood, and share related information on their respective markets and innovations in financial services, it said.
ENERGY
Taipower to issue bonds
State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said that it would issue NT$11.7 billion (US$393.12 million) in unsecured straight bonds next month to finance its plans to increase electricity generation. The bond issuance would comprise three tranches: NT$4.7 billion of five-year bonds with a 0.55 percent coupon rate, NT$5.6 billion of seven-year bonds with a 0.60 percent coupon rate and NT$1.4 billion of 10-year bonds with a 0.66 percent coupon rate, Taipower said in a statement on Wednesday. The proceeds from the bond sale would be used to install new generators at Taipower’s natural gas-fired Datan Power Plant (大潭電廠) in Taoyuan, expand its coal-fired Linkou Power Plant (林口發電廠) in New Taipei City, and improve its power transmission equipment, the company said. The launch of the bond sale would be Taipower’s third this year, after a NT$20.5 billion sale in April and a NT$15.2 billion issuance scheduled for the middle of this month.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained