The Taiwan Banker

With Taiwan’s quickly growing international status, it is seeking to become a destination for international talent. Even if more people are noticing the country in general, however, the banking sector has not changed substantially in this short period, which probably began around the beginning of the US trade war with China in 2018. Taiwan must act quickly if it is to capitalize on this trend. In particular, many professionals in Hong Kong are seeking to relocate as the city’s financial sector re-orients itself towards the mainland. Hong Kong is an interesting example. In this case, the linguistic issues in are not critical – a large portion of those hoping to migrate from there speak passable Mandarin – but Taiwan’s financial system is set up in a very different way from that in Hong Kong, as well as elsewhere in the English-speaking world. This factor alone means that financial professionals hoping to make it in Taiwan require some flexibility and creativity in their career plans. Taiwan set up the Gold Card program in 2018 in order to attract top experts in a number of fields, one of which is finance. It further set up a Gold Card Office in 2020 in order to help target the program, and also to help Gold Card holders adjust to life in Taiwan. On December 23, in collaboration with TABF, the Gold Card Office held a roundtable forum on how to attract financial experts from Hong Kong and elsewhere to Taiwan. Besides the issues with Taiwan’s legal system, and the Gold Card program as a whole, a number of issues are known to exist in Taiwan’s banking system. Banking is one of the frequent complaints of foreigners setting up businesses in Taiwan, in any sector. The Gold Card Office is actively communicating with Gold Card holders on these issues; at the same time, financial Gold Card holders are in the best position to be able to reform banks from the inside, if given this responsibility. The government has set a target for every bank branch in Taiwan to be bilingual by 2030. Staff are much more likely to learn fluent English if they have the opportunity to use it internally, not just externally. At the same time, language capability also represents a number of other expectations that foreigners have for banking services. Banks don’t know how to use foreign talent One of the first issues that came up in the seminar was that banks in Taiwan, including foreign-owned ones, almost never hire foreigners. A wide differential clearly exists between the salaries foreign staff would earn abroad and in Taiwan. Gold Card holders are however aware of this fact, and are generally not coming to Taiwan in order to maximize their salaries. In the case of Hong Kong, living costs such as children’s education are substantially cheaper here. Moreover, Taiwan simply has better natural assets; this is why many Hong Kongers would previously take weekend vacations in Taiwan. Instead, the salary issue is usually used as an excuse on the part of the banks not to hire the applicants, worried that the position may turn out to be only a short-term stepping stone. This worry may in fact be valid, not because of the money, but because of the working culture. Banks in Taiwan tend to be run as family businesses, rather than as international financial institutions. The cultural issues themselves may be worth exploring, and not just for the sake of a few hires. Banks could use those hires to show off the results of their broader transformation and reform, as well as to drive projects like digital transformation. Outside of large institutions, meanwhile, foreign immigrants are also contributing to Taiwanese society through more entrepreneurial channels. Because of its low costs and available talent pool, Taiwan has emerged as the ‘newsletter capital of the world.’ One of the topics mentioned in the seminar was the viability of a research newsletter model based in Taiwan, which avoids regulatory issues because any associated trades are still executed in Hong Kong or elsewhere. Even outside of the financial sector itself, however, financial experts make ideal entrepreneurs. They are often naturally able to understand concepts like scalability in order to create sustainable business models. By doing so – in particular, when they make local hires – they can help Taiwan’s business culture become more internationalized in the long term. Before this happens, however, Taiwan must improve its environment for entrepreneurship, particularly by foreigners. A multi-faceted set of issues The session therefore highlighted a complex mix of issues. The question of entrepreneurship, both within and outside the financial sector, also involves the banking sector: banking is frequently identified as a pain point for newcomers to Taiwan. The Gold Card Office has been active on this front, for instance by coordinating the issue of a formal legal document affirming that foreign documents can legitimately prove creditworthiness. Notably, in this case, as well as for some of the other work of the Office, the improvement does not only apply to Gold Card holders. The Gold Card program is thus being used to push broader reforms that could benefit the entire system. Regulation is however not the only problem. In many cases, banks and even individual branches provide inconsistent services, indicating room for standardization and clarification. In light of this variation, the Gold Card Office has helped recommend bilingual branches to Gold Card holders. TABF, meanwhile is also working to train internationalized banking talent, which will help solve some of the language and cultural issues. It is opening a school to cultivate asset managers with international outlook, in order to help turn Taiwan into a talent hub. It is further looking to train front-line banking staff to meet international expectations. This is in part a matter of linguistic ability, but this process must also be guided by an understanding of regulatory constraints in order for banks to design the most efficient processes. Furthermore, by highlighting specific problems, this work in collaboration with the banks can help guide further action by the government on this priority issue. In this way, Taiwan’s banking modernization will require coordination from both inside and outside the government.