Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-24
By: Central News Agency

Chinese yuan-denominated deposits held by banks operating in Taiwan stopped a six-month losing streak in August for the currency partly due to many banks’ efforts to hike yuan deposit rates in a bid to attract more funds, according to the local central bank.
Furthermore, the bank said that a scheduled inclusion of the yuan into the International Monetary Fund’s reserve basket — the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) — in October has also boosted investors’ interest in holding the yuan.

Citing data, the central bank said that the balance of yuan deposits, including negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs), held by banks in Taiwan totaled 305.82 billion yuan (US$45.85 billion) as of the end of August, up 214 million yuan or 0.07 percent from a month earlier.

In February 2013, Taiwan’s central bank lifted a ban against local banks’ domestic banking units (DBUs) conducting yuan-denominated transactions, including yuan deposits.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 24, 2016
By: Ted Chen / Staff reporter

State-run First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) yesterday said that its banking and brokerage subsidiaries had repelled a “ransomware” attack by unidentified hackers that affected its online services on Thursday.

On Wednesday evening, First Securities (第一金證券) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) received an e-mail from hackers demanding a ransom of 50 bitcoins (US$29,916.5) or else they would face attacks to their electronic trading systems, First Financial said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.

At 10:50am on Thursday, the companies detected that their systems were becoming strained from a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, with online services slowing to a crawl due to spiking network bandwidth usage.

First Securities said that although its online services had slowed, its electronic trading systems had remained operational during the attack.     [FULL  STORY]

Stocks were slightly lower in early trading as investors booked some of the profits made this week

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-23
By: KEN SWEET, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks were slightly lower in early trading Friday, as investors booked some of the profits made this week. Technology stocks were trading heavily, particularly Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average fell 36 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,355 as of 9:45 a.m. Eastern. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell six points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,171 and the Nasdaq composite fell 14 points, or 0.3 percent, to 5,326.

AD MAN: Facebook shares fell $2.17, or 2 percent, to $127.92 after The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook was overstating the length of how long its users were watching its video ads, raising concerns that a portion of Facebook’s ad revenue may be at risk.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/23
By: Frances Huang

Taipei, Sept. 23 (CNA) Shares in Taiwan closed higher Friday, extending the momentum from the previous sessions, as the bellwether electronics sector continued an uptrend amid optimism toward its shipments during the current peak season in the global high-tech market, dealers said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電), the most weighted stock on the local market, lead the gains in electronic sector and pushed the broader market higher throughout the session on the back of sound fundamentals, dealers said.

The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) ended up 49.36 points, or 0.53 percent, at the day’s high of 9,284.62, off an early low of 9,228.66. Turnover totaled NT$64.48 billion (US$2.05 billion) during the session.

The market opened up 4.99 points but soon fell into negative territory as investors pocked the gains they had built earlier in the week, despite a stronger Wall Street, dealers said.     [FULL  STORY]

MARKET:CPC said Costco’s lone gas station will only service club members and poses little threat to its outlets, which offer vehicle maintenance, car wash and other services

Taiei Times
Date: Sep 24, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Costco Wholesale Corp’s plans to build a gas station in Taoyuan is unlikely to have any significant effect on other fuel suppliers in the local market, two Taiwanese companies said yesterday.

Lin Jung-lieh (林榮烈), the head of state-owned CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (CPC, 台灣中油) oil product marketing division, said that the US warehouse club’s announcement on Thursday said the new gas station in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢) would provide service only to Costco members.

Such a model is not likely to have much of an effect on the business of its state-run gas stations in Jhongli, Lin said.

In addition to selling fuel, CPC’s gas stations across the nation provide services such as vehicle maintenance, car wash and convenience store sales, which gives CPC an advantage over its newest competitor, he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 23, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The unemployment rate stood at 4.08 percent last month, up 0.06 percentage points from the previous month and up 0.18 percentage points from the year-earlier level, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate was 3.95 percent, it said.

The number of unemployed reached 480,000 last month, up 8,000 from a month earlier and an increase of 24,000 from a year earlier, it said.

The spike in the unemployment rate was the result of an increase in first-time jobseekers due to the graduation season and a rise in part-time jobseekers, Census Department Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said.     [FULL  STORY]

THANK YOU, APPLE:A MOEA official said the results were largely due to orders for electronic components, which set a record last month, ahead of the new iPhone launch

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 23, 2016
By: Lauly Li / Staff reporter

Taiwan’s export orders grew 8.3 percent annually to US$37.93 billion last month, ending 16 straight months of annual decline, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said yesterday.

“The better-than-expected result was mainly driven by the strong orders for electronics components because of Apple Inc’s new iPhone launch,” Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) told a news conference.

The latest figure was US$2 billion more than the ministry’s estimate, Lin added.

Orders for electronics components jumped 16.5 percent year-on-year and 11.8 percent month-on-month to a record level of US$10.44 billion last month, the ministry’s statistics showed.     [FULL  STORY]