The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is later this month to begin a special examination of the nation’s top 10 mortgage lenders to see if banks exercise solid risk management, FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) said on Monday.
The commission would examine the first bank this month and complete the special examination by March, Huang said at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee in Taipei.
He did not identify the banks.
Photo: CNA
The examination would focus on banks’ risk assessment for extending luxury housing loans, construction loans and loans to developers who put their unsold houses up as collateral, Huang said.
Whether banks have complied with the central bank’s credit controls, such as the loan-to-value requirements, would also be part of the commission’s inspection, he said.
Besides the special examination, the commission’s regular banking inspections would focus on commercial real-estate lending, Huang added.
Asked whether banks play a role in pushing up housing prices, Huang said that more data would be needed to reach a conclusion.
“Housing prices are affected by many factors,” Huang said. “What the FSC can do is to ensure that banks exercise solid risk controls and comply with regulations.”
The central bank on Monday announced that it was tightening its credit controls to prevent an excessive flow of credit to the property market.
The FSC said that in its special examination it would pay close attention to banks regarding the central bank’s new measures.
The central bank’s new measures include capping the loan-to-value ratio at 60 percent for housing loans granted to corporate buyers for their first property and at 50 percent for their second, while the limit on the ratio for an individuals’ third property is set at 60 percent.
As for loans granted to developers who use unsold houses as collateral, the central bank is capping the ratio at 50 percent.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure