The central bank on Friday said that it earlier in the day lifted the interest rate it pays domestic banks for funds held in reserves after raising its policy rates for the third consecutive quarter by 12.5 basis points a week ago.
The interest it pays on reserves originating from passbook deposits on Friday rose to 0.396 percent, while the amount paid on time deposits advanced to 1.083 percent.
That compared with the 0.271 percent interest rate for passbook deposits and the 0.955 percent rate for time deposits before the latest adjustments, central bank data show.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The interest is paid to domestic financial institutions’ B accounts, which account for 55 percent of their reserves, the central bank said, adding that the monetary authority does not pay interest on the remainder of reserves in A accounts.
The move increases costs for the central bank as it pays more to domestic financial institutions that deposit the required reserves.
However, as local lenders increased their deposit rates after the central bank raised its rates on Sept. 23, the monetary authority decided to adjust the interest on its B accounts to reflect the increase in capital costs at local banks, the statement said.
Apart from an increase of 12.5 basis points on its policy rates on Sept. 23, the central bank also on Saturday increased the reserve requirement ratios on New Taiwan dollar demand deposits and time saving deposits by 25 basis points.
While the central bank did not hike rates as aggressively as some economists predicted, its latest actions show that it could tighten fiscal policy throughout the remainder of the year to fight inflationary pressures, analysts said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to