Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the largest lender in the country, is to raise the benchmark one-year time savings deposit rate to a 15-year-high 1.715 percent from tomorrow following a surprise central bank rate hike.
The increase reflected a 12.5 basis-point key interest rate increase instituted by the central bank on Friday, Bank of Taiwan said.
The state-owned lender is also to raise its two-year time savings deposit rate and three-year time savings deposit rate by 0.125 percentage points to 1.750 percent and 1.785 percent respectively.
Photo: Lu Kuan-cheng, Taipei Times
Under the new rates, one-year time savings depositors who have NT$1 million (US$31,291) in their accounts would receive more than NT$17,280 in annual interest payments, up from NT$16,020, based on compound-rate calculations, Bank of Taiwan said.
On Thursday, the central bank said it would raise key interest rates the next day in light of higher Taiwan Power Co (台電) electricity rates effective from April 1.
After the central bank’s latest rate hike, Taiwan’s benchmark discount rate has increased to 2 percent.
The central bank said it has revised consumer price index growth to 2.16 percent for this year, above the 2 percent alert level it set as well as an earlier 1.89 percent forecast in December last year, prompting it to raise rates for the first time since March 2022.
The central bank’s decision came as a surprise after the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged.
With the changes, Taiwan’s rate on accommodations with collateral has risen to 2.375 percent, while accommodations without collateral increased to 4.25 percent, the central bank said.
From March 2022 to March last year, the central bank raised interest rates 75 basis points, which led Bank of Taiwan’s one-year time savings deposit rate to increase to 1.59 percent from 0.84 percent.
Bank of Taiwan had also increased interest payments on deposits of NT$1 million to almost NT$16,020 from about NT$8,340 a year, based on compound rate calculations, during the same period.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS