The Ministry of Finance will assist Taiwan’s state-owned banks in seeking out suitable overseas financial institutions with which to form strategic partnerships, Minister Christina Y. Liu said Feb. 21.
Liu noted that to meet the requirements for Taiwan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership within the next decade, one of the government’s stated goals, the nation’s public banks need to open up further and become more international.
She said her ministry would “coordinate with the Financial Supervisory Commission in inviting other domestic financial institutions to participate” in the drive to establish strategic partnerships with overseas financial and banking entities.
Ministry officials noted that when ROC Premier Sean C. Chen was chairman of Taiwan Cooperative Bank, he formed a strategic alliance between the state-owned bank and Paris-based global banking group BNP Paribas, helping TCB create a more complete network of life insurance, investment and other spin-offs and advance its vision of transforming itself into a financial holding company.
Liu said she would be glad to see other state-owned banks take steps toward forming partnerships with foreign financial institutions. The focus of the drive, she said, would be on introducing new technology to revitalize domestic banks’ business operations, and not on capital, of which the banks have plenty, as Perng Fai-nan, governor of the ROC Central Bank, has pointed out in the past. (SB-THN)