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.
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
RSS