FSC Encourages Taiwanese Banks to Tap Myanmar Market

After returning from a visit to Myanmar, H.N. Kuei, director general of the Banking Bureau under the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), discloses that the government of Myanmar is willing to widely open its financial market to foreign financial institutions by allowing setting up branches, subsidiaries and/or launch joint ventures in the country.

So many Taiwanese banks will be interested in exploring the financial market in Myanmar and may establish footholds there probably in the first half of this year. First Commercial Bank and E. Sun Bank already have representative offices in Yangon, the capital of the country; while Mega International Commercial Bank, Cathay United Bank and CTBC Bank have recently been  approved by the FSC to set up rep. offices there.

Sensing potential markets in Southeast Asia, M. C. Tseng, chairman of FSC, sent Kuei to the said region at the end of last year to visit the financial authorities in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar to discuss further opening the financial markets in the countries.

Currently the deposit/lending interest rate gap in the banks in Cambodia is 6% on average and such gap in Myanmar is 5%, both obviously higher than the corresponding 3% in China and 1.43% in Taiwan.

Thailand also holds potential for Taiwanese banks to establish footholds as the country has reopened the door to foreign financial institutions to run subsidiaries there. Insiders say, the threshold of setting up a subsidiary in Thailand is about NT$20 billion (US$666.67 million) and a subsidiary can at once run 20 footholds. (JL)