EMQ Taiwan (易安聯) is to halt its remittance services for migrant workers on Oct. 4, after the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) rejected its license application for not meeting capital requirements, the regulator said on Friday.
EMQ Taiwan, which has about 150,000 clients who are migrant workers, can continue helping its current clients remit money until Oct. 3, but cannot take on new ones, FSC Department of Planning Director-General Brenda Hu (胡則華) said.
The company has operated its remittance business as a regulated experiment in the commission’s “financial technology sandbox” since May 2019.
It applied for a formal license in July, but failed to boost its capital to meet minimum requirements by the end of last month, Hu said.
Under the Act Governing Electronic Payment Institutions (電子支付機構管理條例), a company without a license to operate an electronic payment service can apply for a restrictive license to provide remittance services.
To obtain such a license, the applicant’s paid-in capital or overheads may not be less than NT$100 million (US$3.61 million), which is lower than the NT$500 million requirement for those who apply for an e-payment license.
EMQ Taiwan’s overhead was NT$200,000, Hu said.
The company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based EMQ Inc, applied to the Ministry of Economic Affairs for a capital injection, but the ministry rejected it, Hu said.
With each of EMQ Taiwan’s clients on average remitting NT$9,000 to their family abroad in each transaction, the total exposure in its experiments in the sandbox was about NT$8 million, Hu said.
It must complete any remittance work for clients before Oct. 4, she added.
Welldone Co (統振), another company that has worked in the commission’s fintech sandbox, also filed for a restrictive license to continue its business, which is still being reviewed, the FSC said.
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