The central bank yesterday said that it had met with 36 local lenders and the National Federation of Credit Cooperatives to make sure they comply with credit control measures when processing mortgage applications.
The central bank made the closed-door meeting known in a statement yesterday to highlight its resolve to cool the local property market.
Housing transactions last month surged 28 percent month-on-month to 21,385 units in the nation’s six special municipalities, as negative effects of a local COVID-19 outbreak faded.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
The central bank reminded lenders to stand by its ban on grace periods for purchases of second homes in the six special municipalities, as well as in Hsinchu county and city.
The removal of grace periods on Friday last week and two previous waves of credit controls were intended to prevent funds from flowing into the local property market, which has seen a boom amid global monetary easing, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said.
The policymaker also urged lenders to implement risk pricing practices and avoid cutthroat competition to win customers.
Lenders should also warn borrowers of potential interest rate increases when global central banks reverse their loose monetary policy stances, the central bank said.
The US Federal Reserve has indicated that it plans to taper its bond purchasing program later this year and raise interest rates as the US economy emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yang on Thursday said that credit controls are not effective in curbing housing transactions, though they have achieved the goal of maintaining the nation’s financial stability.
Housing transactions in Taipei last month soared 28 percent month-on-month to 2,487 units, while Taoyuan and Taichung reported advances of 26 percent and 37 percent to 3,757 and 4,011 units respectively.
Housing deals in Tainan and Kaohsiung advanced 19 percent and 41 percent each to 2,221 and 3,677 units respectively.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said the market would need more time to assimilate the ban on grace periods.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS