The Taiwan Banker recently sat down with Leo Seewald, President of AmCham Taiwan, to discuss Taiwan’s bilingual nation initiative, efforts to make the financial sector more globally oriented. Seewald also offered his views on how Taiwan can use fintech to help young people with their financial planning. 

Before serving as AmCham’s president, Seewald was country head of BlackRock in Taiwan and prior to that chairman of Manulife’s asset management company in Taiwan and deputy general manager of the its life insurance operation here.

The Taiwan Banker: Taiwan has set the goal of becoming a bilingual country by 2030. What is your take on this policy?

Leo Seewald: The bilingual initiative is a great thing for Taiwan and I think it will make Taiwan a lot more competitive. It is not an easy task, and I still have a question whether we’re talking about true bilingualism like Hong Kong and Singapore, or English proficiency like Malaysia, but I think if we really go in the direction of true bilingualism, with laws established in both English and Chinese, that would make Taiwan a lot more business friendly for international companies to come here and invest.

It’s not something that has to be done overnight. I understand even Singapore took much longer than 10 years to reach bilingualism.

The Taiwan Banker: How would Taiwan’s role in Asia change if it were a bilingual country?

Leo Seewald: If you have English and Chinese, you basically can be the bridge between the east and the west. Hong Kong fulfilled that role for many years. And I think Taiwan can certainly take up more of role if it gets to a level of good English competency, where people will then look at Taiwan as a place to do business in the rest of Asia.

The bridge is never the big country. The U.S. is never the bridge. China is never the bridge. The bridge is the small country in the middle. Taiwan is small enough and should be flexible enough that if we really move ahead with this bilingual initiative, we can make it work.

The Taiwan Banker: Is there anything in particular that the financial sector can do to help?

Leo Seewald: What I always say to our members, which include a lot of foreign financial institutions, is that they should help drive this process. It’s not something the government can do by itself. With the resources they have and the level of education of their staff, many who speak English and went to school in different places,  the financial industry should be helping to move Taiwan generally in that direction [of becoming a bilingual country].  

So how do we speed that up?

When I worked at BlackRock, we made sure that there was English training for our staff on an ongoing basis. I think financial institutions can certainly offer that to their staff to help them grow and develop. The resources in the financial industry are there to make that happen and because the financial industry touches both the domestic and global market, the opportunity and benefits of going bilingual are much higher than in other industries.

The Taiwan Banker: How could Taiwan’s financial industry use bilingualism in its global expansion?

Leo Seewald:  One example would be the New Southbound Policy initiative. If you want to take part in that and expand your financial institution to Southeast Asia, you’re going to be using a lot more English, so it only helps you if your staff speaks better English.

If you have bilingual staff, you will start to develop a talent base that you can deploy anywhere in Asia.

The Taiwan Banker: Do you think Taiwan needs more native speaking English teachers to support the bilingual country initiative?

Leo Seewald: Yes, we need more teachers, but we need think about how the English language is going to be taught and used ten years from now. We should use the learnings of teachers in the U.S., Canada and Britain, who have been teaching remotely throughout Covid. If we use their learnings, and the technology, we can teach English to many more students in Taiwan than if we only focus on bringing the teachers here.

The Taiwan Banker: Speaking of technology, how do you think Taiwan could make greater use of fintech?

Leo Seewald: I think fintech can help to democratize the wealth-building process. People are intimidated right now. They think you need to have a lot of money if you want to invest. But if you can use technology to have a virtual piggy bank, and you show young people that they can invest small amounts, even a few hundred NT dollars, in things they care about, like green energy, they will do it and it will start to their build their wealth for the long run. That’s a very important thing.

The Taiwan Banker: Do you have any other advice for Taiwan’s financial sector?

Leo Seewald: If Taiwan wants to be a financial center, it should look at the regulations and tax policies of Hong Kong and Singapore. Those two areas are the financial centers in Asia because it is easy to do business; the tax rates are low; it is easy to move money around, and the regulations are consistent and in line with international best practices.

The Taiwan Banker: Do you think with the changes in Hong Kong over the past few years that Taiwan has more of an opportunity to become a financial center in Asia?

Leo Seewald: We’re already seeing that. People are setting up operations here. People are looking at Taiwan as an alternative, but Singapore is benefiting more than Taiwan because it has more of a financial industry friendly environment. The more Taiwan can address that issue and make itself friendly to the financial industry, the more business we will see come here.