The Ministry of Finance (MOF) yesterday asked all state-run financial institutions to improve regulatory compliance at their overseas branches by hiring local experts, despite higher costs.
The ministry, the largest shareholder in state-run financial institutions and responsible for the appointments of their chairpersons, made the request after a meeting with the institutions’ top executives yesterday afternoon.
Deputy Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) said the ministry will mete out punishments after it received the results of a cross-ministerial probe into the failure of Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) New York branch to comply with rules against money laundering.
The New York State Department of Financial Services on Friday announced in a statement that the New York branch of Mega bank agreed to pay a US$180 million fine for violating the US Bank Secrecy Act and money laundering regulations.
The branch failed to notify local regulators of more than 70 transactions in 2012 that involved Panama, a high-risk area for money laundering, the department said in the statement.
After hearing a report by Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) chairman Shiu Kuang-si (徐光曦), Su attributed the bank’s violation mainly to negligence that could have been avoided if it had a better understanding of New York’s compliance requirements.
Mega bank should have notified the ministry and the Financial Supervisory Commission of the issue as soon as the US authorities first demanded a solution in February, Su said.
“The incident shows the need for local compliance counsel. All state-run financial institutions should make use of local experts at overseas branches to avoid similar negligence,” Su said.
Such an arrangement would entail significant compliance costs.
Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), the main unit of Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), last year called off plans to set up a branch in the US over concerns of high compliance costs, the conglomerate’s chief financial officer Welch Lin (林維俊) said yesterday.
Mega Financial president Wu Hann-ching (吳漢卿) has offered to step down over the mishap, but the most profitable state-run financial institution has asked Wu to remain in his post until the government probe is completed.
Mega bank rejected media reports that its New York branch was fined for money laundering.
‘UNACCEPTABLE’: The foreign ministry said that China’s behavior broke international law, while Johnny Chiang was worried such balloons could be used against Taiwan A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US was yesterday condemned by officials in Taipei and sparked calls for the government to plan countermeasures. The Pentagon on Thursday said it had detected a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the country. Beijing has said the balloon is a civilian meteorological device that drifted into US territory after being blown off course. The National Security Bureau and Ministry of National Defense should investigate whether surveillance balloons could be used against Taiwan and prepare to respond to such acts, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s postponement
INTELLIGENCE VALUE: While the US was working on recovering the balloon’s remains, China said that it reserved ‘the right to make ... necessary responses’ US President Joe Biden’s administration lauded the Pentagon for shooting down an alleged Chinese spy balloon off the US Atlantic coast on Saturday, but China angrily voiced its “strong dissatisfaction” at the move, and said it might make “necessary responses.” The craft spent several days flying over North America before it was targeted off the coast of the southeastern state of South Carolina with a missile fired from an F-22 plane, Pentagon officials said. It fell into relatively shallow water just 14m deep. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the operation a “deliberate and lawful action” that came in response to China’s
RISK FACTOR: ASEAN issued a statement saying the cross-strait situation ‘could lead to miscalculation,’ but it is willing to facilitate dialogue to ensure stability in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed a joint statement by ASEAN leaders voicing concerns that the situation across the Taiwan Strait could affect regional stability. The statement was issued after the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat ended on Saturday in Jakarta. It was the first major meeting since Indonesia assumed chairmanship of ASEAN this year. Attendees of the meeting reiterated their determination to promote “sustainable peace, security, stability, and prosperity within and beyond the region,” the statement said. They expressed concerns about developments across the Taiwan Strait and their “implications on regional stability,” the statement said. The cross-strait situation “could lead to miscalculation, serious
THINK TANK VISIT: The former US Indo-Pacific official said that a capture of Taiwan’s outlying islands by China rather than a large-scale attack is a grave security concern The US and Taiwan can deepen their relations on many fronts, former head of the US Indo-Pacific Command Philip Davidson said yesterday while visiting President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office. Davidson is leading a six-member delegation from the National Bureau of Asian Research, a US-based think tank. They arrived on Monday and are scheduled to depart tomorrow. Tsai met with the delegation yesterday morning, welcoming the organization on its first visit to Taiwan since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the office said in a statement. She thanked Davidson, a retired admiral, for paying close attention to matters regarding the Taiwan