Bank of Beijing Co (北京銀行), part owned by ING Groep NV, is in talks to buy half of ING’s Chinese life insurance venture in what would be its second acquisition in three months.
Bank of Beijing is negotiating terms for Beijing Capital Group Co’s 50 percent stake in ING Capital Life Insurance Co (首創安泰人壽), it said in a statement yesterday. ING Groep, the biggest Dutch financial-services firm, owns the other half of ING Capital Life, which was established in 2002 and had 2 billion yuan (US$293 million) in premiums at the end of last year.
China is letting banks expand into brokering, fund management and insurance, winding back former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji’s (朱鎔基) 1993 restrictions, to help them become less reliant on income from lending. A 64 percent stock market drop this year has curbed mutual fund sales at banks, and a slowing economy is eroding demand for loans while pushing bad debts higher.
Bank of Beijing won approval in July to buy 20 percent of Langfang City Commercial Bank (廊坊市商業銀行) for 127.5 million yuan. The bank now has 131 branches in Beijing and outlets in Tianjin, Shanghai and Xian.
ING, which received a 10 billion euro (US$13.4 billion) lifeline from the Netherlands, agreed to sell its Taiwanese life insurance unit for US$600 million to Taipei-based Fubon Financial Holdings Co (富邦金控), the two firms said on Monday.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
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