The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus yesterday called for better financial education and oversight measures, as the nation was hit particularly hard by the fall of cryptocurrency exchange FTX last month.
Potentially billions of US dollars in value were lost after FTX experienced mass withdrawals following reports of financial mismanagement and a failed rescue deal, leading to a bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11 and the arrest of its founder.
Local cryptoexperts have estimated that more than 300,000 Taiwanese were affected by the collapse, with losses totaling more than NT$15 billion (US$488.1 million).
Photo: Bloomberg
This would make Taiwan the fifth-most affected country, excluding tax havens.
Considering its effect on Taiwan, the TPP caucus yesterday held a news conference at the legislature to call for better financial literacy.
Awareness of the risks of investing in the cryptocurrency market is insufficient among Taiwanese, TPP Legislator Jang Chyi-lu (張其祿) said.
At a G20 summit in Indonesia last month, world leaders called for an international framework for cryptomanagement based on the principle of “same activity, same risk, same regulation,” he said.
However, Taiwan’s only law governing cryptocurrency trading is the Regulations Governing Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism for Enterprises Handling Virtual Currency Platform or Transaction (虛擬通貨平台及交易業務事業防制洗錢及打擊資恐辦法), which was passed last year, he said.
For transactions outside of Taiwan, traders can only be advised to exercise caution, he said, urging the government to draft new regulations.
He also called for the creation of a central bank digital currency to provide a more secure and stable option for traders.
Most Taiwanese affected by the FTX collapse were students and people with limited funds, TPP Legislator Cynthia Wu (吳欣盈) said, citing a local self-help association.
This year’s Taiwan Financial Lives Survey by the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance showed a decline in financial resilience and literacy among young people compared with two years ago, she added.
“People in the younger generation do not have high incomes and believe that investing is the fastest way to earn more money,” Wu quoted the report as saying. “They therefore prioritize investing when they have some extra cash.”
Young people often overlook the dangers of investing, she said, adding that the effects of the FTX collapse prove the importance of financial education.
Apart from business programs, the national curriculum for high-school students only covers economic theory with virtually no practical advice on personal finances or retirement planning, she said.
Especially considering the low incomes earned by recent graduates, many young people are drawn to investing to grow their wealth, leaving them vulnerable to traps, she said.
The Ministry of Education and the Financial Supervisory Commission should work together to draft a compulsory financial literacy curriculum to keep Taiwanese from falling victim in the next FTX-like incident, Wu said.
TPP Legislator Chen Wan-hui (陳琬惠) accused the Ministry of Digital Affairs of “doing nothing” in response to the FTX collapse, despite regulation of the digital economy falling under its purview.
The ministry should “fulfill its duty” and contribute to the development of the nation’s digital economy, Chen added.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake yesterday struck off the coast of Hualien, causing brief transportation disruptions in northern and eastern Taiwan, as authorities said that aftershocks of magnitude 5 or higher could occur over the next three days. The quake, which hit at 7:24pm at a depth of 24.5km, registered an intensity of 4 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. In Taipei, the MRT railway’s operations control center received an earthquake alert and initiated standard safety procedures, briefly halting trains on the Bannan (blue) line for about a minute.
RSS