The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) fined financial institutions and publicly listed firms NT$129.02 million (US$4.03 million) during the first eight months of this year for internal control, financial services misconduct and corporate governance-related breaches, data released last week by the commission showed.
The fines were down 30.42 percent from the NT$184.42 million imposed during the same period last year and were less than half — 46.97 percent — of the commission’s target of NT$274.68 million for the whole of this year, the commission said.
The commission attributed the decline in fines to a higher comparison base last year, when it meted out heavy penalties to a financial holding company for corporate governance breaches after a major shareholder was found to have improperly interfered in the company’s operations, as well as to several banks for employee involvement in assisting fraud rings or theft from clients.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Among the commission’s three major subordinate agencies, the Banking Bureau and the Insurance Bureau imposed a lower total amount of fines in the first eight months of this year compared with the same period last year, while the Securities and Futures Bureau imposed slightly more.
In the January-to-August period, the financial penalties imposed by the Banking Bureau were NT$39.72 million, down 52.09 percent from a year earlier. The largest fine was NT$12 million imposed on Taichung Commercial Bank Co (台中商銀), with fines of NT$8 million respectively imposed on Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行) and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行).
The Insurance Bureau imposed total fines of NT$36 million during the eight-month period, down 27.13 percent year-on-year. The largest fine was NT$9 million imposed on the Taiwan branch of Cardif Assurance Vie (法國巴黎人壽), followed by a NT$6 million fine imposed on the Taiwan branch of Cardif Assurance Risques Divers (法國巴黎產物保險).
Both are subsidiaries of the same France-based international insurance company.
During the same period, the Securities and Futures Bureau fined several securities and futures firms, including Time Securities Investment Consulting Co (時間投顧) and Cathay Securities Investment Trust Co (國泰投信), for a total of NT$53.3 million, up 0.34 percent year-on-year.
The commission’s budget documents show that it has set target penalties of NT$263.37 billion for next year, down about 4.12 percent from this year’s target and the lowest in the past four years.
The commission said that it views these fines as a way to help firms correct their deficiencies, not as a means of generating income.
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
FORECAST: The greater computing power needed for emerging AI applications has driven higher demand for advanced semiconductors worldwide, TSMC said The government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has raised its forecast for this year’s growth in the output value of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to above 22 percent on strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. In its latest IEK Current Quarterly Model report, the institute said the local semiconductor industry would have output of NT$6.5 trillion (US$216.6 billion) this year, up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, an upward revision from a 19.1 percent increase estimate made in May. The strong showing of the local semiconductor industry largely reflected the stronger-than-expected performance of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing segment,
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component