In response to the National Development Council’s (NDC) plan to make Taiwan a bilingual nation, CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) has been developing bilingual financial services, with Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) on Friday last week saying that he was impressed by the bank’s efforts to develop a friendly bilingual environment and the delicacy of its bilingual services.
Huang said he hoped that every branch would offer foreign language services by 2030, as he visited CTBC Bank’s Shifu branch in Taipei — the bank’s first branch to offer bilingual services.
Joining Huang were NDC Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), FSC Deputy Chairman Jean Chiu (邱淑貞), Banking Bureau Director-General Sherri Chuang (莊琇媛), Banking Bureau Chief Secretary Phil Tong (童政彰) and Department of International Affairs Director-General Joe Lai (賴銘賢).
Photo courtesy of CTBC Bank
The FSC and NDC officials were received by CTBC Bank chairman Morris Li (利明献), vice chairman Austin Chan (詹庭禎), president James Chen (陳佳文), retail banking chief executive officer Albert Lee (李玉秋) and retail banking executive vice president Amy Yang (楊淑惠).
Li said that the bank is committed to providing bilingual services across all channels, from physical outlets to digital platforms.
By the end of this year, each of the bank’s branches is expected to be equipped with bilingual number-calling machines and paper forms, Li said.
The bank would also focus on enhancing staffs’ foreign-language skills, and aims to provide staff with Southeast Asian language courses in addition to English and Japanese, he said.
The bank would offer group study, online learning and one-to-one training courses to staff, and include language score requirements for specific jobs, he added.
CTBC’s Shifu branch displays Chinese and English on its foreign exchange rate/interest rate bulletin boards and number-calling machines, and has both languages on its paper forms for transactions.
Nearly 60 percent of the branch’s counter staff can provide financial services in English, the bank said.
The bank plans to use the experience of the front desk staffs’ interactions with foreign customers to create a daily training program for CTBC’s 152 branches in Taiwan, it said.
CTBC’s Internet banking and mobile banking services also provide friendly English-language interfaces, including money transfer, currency exchange and asset inquiry functions. Foreign customers log into the bank’s mobile banking more than 12,000 times per month, with an average of nine logins per person per month, CTBC data showed.
The bank has more than 6,300 automatic teller machines nationwide that provide services in Chinese and English.
For customers with foreign credit or debit cards, there are 12 languages for them to choose from, it said.
The bank has currency exchange machines at the ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung, which can exchange New Taiwan dollars, US dollars, yen and yuan, it added.
CTBC said that it provides subsidies, cash rewards and game-based learning channels to help staff improve their foreign-language abilities.
It also offers language training courses for expatriate supervisors, has set up a language learning space at its head office and launched English consulting services by on-site foreign teachers, with the aim of providing staff with a variety of language learning options.
CTBC has set up the Shifu branch, and its Shizheng branch in Taichung and Boai branch in Kaohsiung, to be used as bilingual demonstration branches since July 1 to comply with the FSC’s efforts to build a friendly bilingual financial environment, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS