The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Tuesday asked banks to examine their mortgage practices, as it had found that dummy accounts had been used to inflate real-estate prices in metropolitan Taipei.
It found that about 20 investors offered money management courses in which they encouraged consumers to apply for mortgages with banks, saying that they would help them invest in property free of charge, Financial Examination Bureau Deputy Director General Chang Tzy-ming (張子敏) told a news conference.
The investors helped them pay the mortgages, assigning scriveners to withdraw cash from banks to pay the debt, Chang said.
The scheme to inflate prices also included forging contracts, Chang said.
Two local banks were involved, with their staff participating in the investment courses, Chang said, urging the government to ban such practices.
The banks failed to appraise the properties appropriately and did not notice that market values stated in the contracts were too high, the commission said, adding that the lenders did not consult the government’s actual-price registration system.
They also did not notice that dummy accounts were used, it said.
Meanwhile, the banks provided working funds to the mortgage takers, indirectly contravening the loan-to-value limits on mortgages set by the central bank, the commission said, adding that this increased the risk of the loans.
The commission on Thursday held a virtual meeting with general managers of all local banks, credit unions and bill finance companies, asking them to examine their practices and reminding them that their mortgage operations would be examined later this year.
As the central bank earlier this month asked construction companies to develop their projects within 18 months of taking loans, the commission asked the banks to penalize those who breach the rules, Chang said.
“Banks must not help borrowers hoard land,” Chang said.
The Banking Bureau is considering whether to raise the risk weighting of mortgages in the calculation of capital adequacy at banks and reduce a bank’s capital adequacy if it has approved too many loans with high loan-to-value ratios, the commission said.
The new method of calculation might take effect as soon as June, it said.
The commission was the second government agency to hold talks with banks about the mortgage issue, following the central bank last week.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of US Affordable Care Act enrollees expired on Jan.1, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year. Democrats forced a 43-day US government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their political aspirations this year. US President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash. In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A US House of Representatives vote
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
RSS