New Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Peng Chun-lung has launched a series of reform measures within a month of taking office. In a recent joint media interview, he emphasized that establishing a “safe” and “development-oriented” financial market will be the focus of his administration. Peng revealed that in order to achieve this goal, he will promote three important policies and relax eight major financial measures, covering all three industries of finance.
The three main focuses of the future policy of the Financial Supervisory Commission are as follows:
1. Establishing a regulation adjustment platform initiated by experts and scholars to make financial regulations more grounded.
The first initiative is the “Action Innovation Regulation Adjustment Plan”. Before taking office, Peng had already consulted with associations and industry players multiple times and collected 124 suggestions, of which 38 were confirmed as immediately feasible and will be quickly responded to.
Peng plans to establish a “Financial Development and Innovation Regulation Adjustment Proposal Platform” covering banking, insurance, securities, futures, and technology innovation. However, unlike in the past, this platform will be led by scholars and experts, who will proactively identify problems from the market and set up regulatory review teams. Peng emphasized that the financial market needs diverse voices, so each team will be led by scholars with different expertise to ensure professional division of labor and collaboration in each field.
In addition, the Financial Supervisory Commission will relax eight policy measures in order to enhance the flexibility and competitiveness of the financial market:
– Opening and simplifying the offline operations and procedures of pure online banks.
– Opening micro Taiwan index futures products.
– Insurance companies’ investments in public buildings with a sustainable coefficient of 1.28% will not be subject to adjustment under the new regulations.
– Simplifying the process for banks to issue structural bonds.
– Relaxing the number of appointed financial institutions for overseas funds without the nature of investment trust funds.
– Allowing securities firms to establish simple branch institutions.
– Amending the foreign exchange reserve system to stabilize the hedging costs of life insurance companies.
– Continuing to promote trust evaluation incentives.
2. Promoting the concept of a “lightweight sandbox”.
Peng pointed out that innovation and development in the financial market need to be based on safety, and he proposed a plan to accelerate financial technology innovation. After the success of the Taiwan regulatory sandbox experiment, it is necessary to further promote regulatory amendments in order to transform the experimental results into financial technology services. However, the process of amending and legislating laws is often complex and lengthy. Therefore, Peng proposed the concept of a “lightweight sandbox” to expand the scope of trials and strengthen cooperation between the financial and technology industries through self-regulatory norms and review points.
Peng stated that the pursuit of investment opportunities for life insurers in the domestic market is also an important aspect. The Financial Supervisory Commission has already convened meetings with the six major life insurance companies to discuss how to break through the limitations of existing public construction projects and has proposed some specific solutions. Peng revealed that he will first find “experimental cases” and after their success, convince other departments to promote these measures. This approach not only reduces risks but also ensures the effectiveness and operability of policies.
3. Building an Asian asset management center.
Peng’s third important policy is to establish an Asian asset management center.
In fact, all previous chairmen of the Financial Supervisory Commission had such expectations, but they were never realized. Peng hopes to break this curse and turn Taiwan into one of the Asian asset management centers after 20 years of preparation and brewing. He pointed out that Taiwan has abundant private wealth and numerous successful overseas Taiwanese businessmen, which are advantages for Taiwan. By fully utilizing these advantages, Taiwan can establish a unique asset management center to attract international capital and talent.
Peng believes that other countries’ experiences are worth learning from, such as Japan’s practice of establishing “special zones” to promote the construction of asset management centers through different cities’ division of labor. Taiwan can learn from these successful experiences while leveraging its own advantages, such as having a complete industrial foundation and excellent financial technology talent. Peng hopes that in the future, Taiwan can become an important choice for investment in areas such as green energy startups, making Taiwan’s asset management center competitive.
Peng Chun-lung’s series of reform measures after taking office demonstrate his determination and courage to promote financial market innovation and development. Through the promotion of the Action Innovation Regulation Adjustment Plan, acceleration of financial technology innovation, and the establishment of an Asian asset management center, it can be seen that Peng aims to achieve comprehensive development of Taiwan’s financial market while ensuring its safety.