The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday announced that it would allow Web-only life and property insurers to launch, its latest effort to push for virtual financial services since rules for Web-only bank were eased in 2018.
A Web-only insurer cannot sell policies through physical channels or through salespeople, the commission said.
Its sales must be carried out completely online, it said.
Photo: Kao Shih-ching, Taipei Times
Unlike virtual banking licenses, which have a fixed quota, the FSC does not plan to limit the number of operating licenses to be issued to virtual insurers, Insurance Bureau Director-General Shih Chiung-hwa (施瓊華) told a news conference in New Taipei City.
“We will concentrate on the feasibility and innovation of the applicants’ business models,” Shih said. “If an applicant is apt to succeed, we will grant it the license.”
A virtual property insurer must develop innovative policies that conventional property insurers do not offer, so applicants hoping to set up a Web-only operation must present preliminary ideas or plans, Shih said.
“New risks have been created as a new economy emerges amid digitalization, and we hope new insurance policies can cover these risks,” she said.
For example, offices and vehicles are being shared more often, so the risk should be distributed differently than for an asset owned by an individual, she said.
A virtual life insurer must focus on providing protection-type policies, which conventional life insurers seldom highlight in their marketing, Shih said.
“Up to 18 life insurers and 16 property insurers already sell their products online, so Web-only insurance companies must offer different products than what is available and conduct their business differently,” she said.
On average, only 69 percent of Taiwanese have purchased at least one insurance policy, so the FSC hopes that Web-only firms will stimulate inclusive insurance by offering more choices, Shih said.
A virtual insurer must be at least 40 percent owned by a financial institution, and of the 40 percent stake, at least 25 percent should be owned by a life insurance firm or financial conglomerate with an insurance unit to ensure that the new venture is able to comply with insurance regulations, Shih said.
Companies outside the financial sector, such as firms with a fintech, big data analysis, software development, Internet of Things or wireless communications focus, are welcome to invest in virtual insurers, with 60 percent being the largest stake they can hold, she said.
Applications are to open in August after public hearings and possible amendments of the regulations, Shih said, adding that the commission would release the results of a review of the deployment in April 2023.
An online-only life insurer’s paid-in capital would need to be at least NT$1 billion (US$35.94 million), while an online-only property insurer would need at least NT$2 billion, the commission said.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS