Japanese financial authorities announced yesterday that they are punishing Citibank by suspending private banking operations for a year at four of its branches after finding problems with their operations.
The Financial Services Agency ordered that private banking operations be suspended at Citibank's Marunouchi, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka branches for one year from Sept. 29. The private banking licenses of those branches will then be revoked on Sept. 30 next year, so that operations will be discontinued, it said.
Citibank in Japan, part of Citigroup Inc., said yesterday that it accepts the orders and will comply with them.
The FSA's action was in response to a request from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission of Japan, the nation's stock market watchdog, which recently inspected Citibank Japan's private banking operations and identified violations by the bank and its employees.
Citibank Japan apologized and said it will prevent a recurrence. All banking services provided to existing retail customers will be unaffected by the sanctions, Citibank said.
Citibank Japan will strengthen internal control systems to abide by local laws, it said. Six officers have left Citibank to accept responsibility for the problems in Japan, and eight employees have had their compensation reduced and other employees have received formal reprimands, it said.
Private banking consists of lending, investment management, and other banking services for wealthy customers. Retail banking consists of services regular people use, such as savings accounts.
The FSA said it also ordered Citibank to refrain from accepting foreign currency deposits from new customers for one month starting Sept. 29.
Japanese regulators said they decided on the sanctions after finding a large number of "severe legal violations" being conducted by Citibank's Marunouchi Branch and the offices in Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka. Authorities judged that "it would be inappropriate for operations to continue" at the branches, they said.
Article 27 of Japan's Banking Law allows the government to revoke banking licenses when a financial institution acts in a manner that is detrimental to public interest.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS