Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/24
By: Tsai Yi-chu and Kay Liu

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) An online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, which

claimed to be the first in Taiwan, was formally launched Thursday.

Taiwan P2P, also called Xiangmindai (http://www.lend.com.tw), said the service was established to help reduce borrowing costs for people with funding needs and to allow lenders to earn a higher return.

According to Tony Huang (黃智康), CEO of the online service, the maximum amount of each loan is currently set at NT$300,000 (US$9,232.19), and borrowers will be charged a 3 percent fee by the service, apart from the interest paid to the lender.

People seeking to lend funds through the platform will have to go through a review process, and the minimum loan amount is NT$1,000.     [FULL  STORY]

WALKING AHEAD:The Taipei Computer Association called for government funding for the IoT industry so Taiwan can be a world leader, like it was with PCs

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 25, 2016
By: Lauly Li / Staff reporter

Premier-designate Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday said he would move

“proactively” to review current industrial policies to help develop the Internet of Things (IoT) and “smart city” projects in Taiwan after the Democratic Progressive Party administration takes office on May 20.

“We view the IoT field as an important economic growth driver for the nation… We think Taiwan needs new industry to create more job opportunities and business potential,” Lin told reporters after visiting the Smart City Summit and Expo at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei.

Lin said that IoT might be the next Industrial Revolution and Taiwan cannot miss the opportunity the industry promises when Taiwanese companies have the technologies and resources available.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/23
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Romulo Huang

Taipei, March 23 (CNA) Taiwan’s industrial production fell for the ninth

consecutive month in February, but at the lowest decline rate recorded over the past seven months, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) Thursday.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Taiwan’s The industrial production index for February dipped 3.65 percent from a year earlier to 86.96, lower than the 5.65 percent drop seen in January.

The sub-index for the manufacturing sector, which accounts for more than 90 percent of Taiwan’s total industrial production, fell 4.65 percent from a year earlier, the MOEA said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: March 24, 2016
By: Kinga Dema ,Kuensel/Asia News Network

If the spring season is an indication of international tourist arrivals in

Bhutan, the tourism industry is not in for a good year with the numbers not encouraging in the first quarter, from January to March.

Most tour operators recorded a drop in international tourist arrivals this spring season while hotels are complaining of low occupancy.

The Tourism Council of Bhutan refused to share the arrival figures, but tour operators and hoteliers said that there is not much improvement in arrivals this year compared with the same period last year.

Last year was no better. Despite rigorous marketing and promotional activities, Bhutan last year recorded a drop in international tourist arrivals.

It dropped by about 12 percent with about 51,000 arrivals. In 2014, the country recorded 58,022 international tourists.     [FULL  STORY]

NewsBTC
Date: March 22, 2016
By: Gautham

A Taiwanese couple seems to have managed to con at least a thousand people by luring them to invest into a fake bitcoin-based investment scheme. This couple reportedly orchestrated the whole program by using two well-known instant messaging applications.

If it is too good to be true, then it probably is not true. Everyone should keep these words in mind whenever they are on a lookout for some investment opportunities. The same holds true for Bitcoin, for it has few additional drawbacks compared to centralized fiat currencies in terms of bad transactions. Currently, bitcoin transactions are irreversible, and if such circumstances arise where one has to get his payment back, then the only way to go about it is by asking the recipient of the transaction to transfer the money back.

This limitation of bitcoin is often exploited by criminals and frauds to fleece people of their money. In recent times, there have been many cases concerning bitcoin investment schemes that turned out to be fraudulent by nature. These fake bitcoin investment schemes usually lure people into investing big sums for some really unrealistic high returns on investments. Also, the limited understanding of bitcoin among the masses doesn’t help the case either, as they end up investing in something without really understanding much about it – only to lose money.

In a recent case, A Taiwanese couple seems to have managed to con at least a thousand people by luring them to invest into a fake bitcoin-based investment scheme. This couple reportedly orchestrated the whole program by using two well-known instant messaging applications. They contacted potential investors through LINE messaging application to introduce a bitcoin investment scheme that promised up to 2.5 times returns on the original stake within a month. The fraudulent program was presented as a limited-time offer, and many people found it too hard to resist.

Once the investors gave away their hard-earned money, things didn’t turn out as attractive as it sounded in the beginning. Repeated attempts to seek clarification from the couple – who presented them with the investment opportunity – did not yield any result.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/22
By: Tsai Yi-hcu and Lilian Wu

Taipei, March 22 (CNA) The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) gave a

green light Tuesday for Barclays Capital Securities to terminate its operations in Taiwan.

The move is part of the Barclays group’s plan to cut its presence in Asia, the FSC said, adding that it has not heard of any other foreign securities firms that are withdrawing from Taiwan.

Barclays will restructure is global operations strategy to focus on Europe and the United States, while scaling back its businesses in Asia. The date for terminating its operations in Taiwan has been set as April 22.

Chang Li-chen (張麗真), deputy director-general of the FSC’s Securities and Futures Bureau, said that in addition to Taiwan, it is closing offices in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Australia, reducing its offices in Asia to only mainland China and Hong Kong.     [FULL  STORY]