A reverse mortgage program for older homeowners is becoming more popular in Taiwan, as the number of applications and lending amounts continue to grow, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday.
Reverse mortgages allow older homeowners to borrow money against the value of their home without having to move out, with qualified applicants needing to be older than 60, according to most banks’ regulations.
The number of applications to 13 local banks reached 3,186 as of the end of last month, a 38 percent increase from 2,309 a year earlier, commission data showed.
The amount of lending also grew from NT$12.5 billion (US$404.69 million) a year earlier to NT$17.7 billion as of the end of last month, the data showed.
Most loans were provided to homeowners in Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung, with 1,610 cases in all, or 50.5 percent of the total, the commission said.
Due to high housing prices, borrowers living in the greater Taipei area could receive more money against the value of their properties, which helped boost their willingness to participate in the program, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Wang Li-chun (王立群) told a news conference.
Taichung, Changhua County and Nantou County ranked second in terms of the number of loans at 458 combined. They were followed by Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli County with 379 loans in total, the data showed.
Women were slightly more interested in the program, as they accounted for 54.17 percent of all borrowers, the data showed.
The commission said it was not sure why women participated in the program more.
One explanation could be that women usually live longer than men and need to fund their retirement needs, Wang said.
Sate-run banks continued to take the lead in supporting the program, with Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) and Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) taking the top three places in terms of lending amounts.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank completed 1,288 transactions totaling NT$7.6 billion, followed by Land Bank’s 965 transactions totaling NT$5.6 billion and Hua Nan Commercial Bank’s 612 transactions for NT$2.7 billion.
Privately run lenders have remained on the sidelines due to concerns about credit risk and a lack of government assurance, the commission said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to