HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) has lowered the threshold of its private banking service, from individuals with assets of US$5 million to those with US$2 million, in a bid to enhance its competitiveness in the nation’s wealth management market.
The bank maintained its “Premier” service for those with assets of more than NT$3 million, private banking head Sabrina Chen (陳怡婷) told a media briefing in Taipei on Wednesday.
The changes come as HSBC Holdings PLC adjusts its wealth management business worldwide, Chen said.
The group has redefined segments of clients and merged its private banking and wealth management units in a bid to create synergy, she added.
The revised threshold is still higher than the US$1 million threshold adopted by most banks in Taiwan, she said.
Chen did not reveal the number of clients the bank has with ultra-high net worth, but said the bank is confident that its client base would grow, citing a study showing that about 600,000 Taiwanese last year had a net worth of more than US$1 million, a number expected to reach 1 million Taiwanese by 2025.
HSBC Taiwan has not considered applying to the Financial Supervisory Commission for approval of a high-asset program, which would allow it to provide clients new products such as foreign currency-denominated structured notes and derivatives, she said.
“Clients are not necessarily interested in these complicated derivatives, but they necessarily want their bank to research the products well before selling them. Generally, most of our high-net-worth clients prefer products with stable returns, rather than risky ones, so that they can see their assets grow,” she said.
The bank has improved its information system, incoporating more services into the platform for its top clients, Chen said, adding that it is the only private banking service in Taiwan that offers online services.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
RSS