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.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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