Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation

2019 marks the 30th anniversary of TDCC, and TDCC has, as promised, remained committed to promoting financial digitization with innovative ideas and putting itself in users’ shoes in expanding the scope of services in order to achieve the common good of the financial market. Below is a recap of TDCC’s achievements in 2019.

Chairman and CEO Sherman Lin addressed at press conference

In terms of innovative financial services, TDCC’s e-Passbook is a trailblazing asset management information service that allows investors to check the balances of their stock and mutual fund investment accounts on a single platform. This customized, cross-asset and cross-account information service displays account balances on a mark-to-market basis. As of end-2019, the user base of e-Passbook reached 898k. Also, given regulations governing securities token offering (STO) promulgated by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), TDCC will keep the function of STO inquiry in e-Passbook so that investors can be informed of their STO transactions and account balances in a real-time fashion. This is also in line with TDCC’s mandate to maintain neutrality in protecting market data integrity.

Regarding digital finance, TDCC has been promoting electronic registration of CP2 as part of value-added services. In 2019, about 70% of the CP2, in terms of value, in the market are registered electronically, up 60% YoY. The number of issuers opting for electronic registration has doubled, indicating more efficient issuance of short-term bills in the primary market.

As far as supervisory technology is concerned, in order to help Taiwan fulfill its duty to combat money-laundering and terrorist financing, TDCC has put in place an Anti-money Laundering/ Counter Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) Screening system and Company Transparency Platform. In 2019, Taiwan underwent the third round of mutual evaluation of the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering and the results put Taiwan in the “Regular Follow-up” group, which is the most desirable category, suggesting Taiwan’s efforts in AML and CFT are highly recognized by international peers.

To make government services more accessible to the public, TDCC jointly rolled out a One-stop Financial Estate Inquiry system upon the requests of the FSC and Ministry of Finance. The system allows a successor to apply for a list of estate from the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei, as well as a statement of financial estate from the Bankers Association, TDCC, Taiwan Futures Exchange, Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA), Life Insurance Association and Joint Credit Information Center. The service is free of charge and makes estate inquiry much more efficient and convenient.

In regard to pension investment, TDCC launched a voluntary pension investment scheme in collaboration with the SITCA and Securities and Futures Institute, under the supervision of the FSC. Operated by FundRich Securities, the investment scheme has been well-received by the public, attracting 113k participants, of which 41k have signed up for regular fund investment plans offered by FundRich, with monthly fund subscription amounting to NT$350mn. The investment scheme represents another milestone for the mutual fund industry.

As for corporate governance, given the fact that responsible investment has been highly valued by capital market participants in recent years, TDCC has established an IR platform to connect listed companies and institutional investors, which has led to a better rating of corporate governance for Taiwan.

TDCC has engaged in international exchanges for years. In 2019, Chairman and CEO Sherman Lin was elected Vice Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Central Securities Depository Group (ACG) and board member of The World Forum of CSDs (WFC), where he pledges to expand the global presence of the WFC, restructure the task forces, strengthen cooperation among members, explore new business opportunities, facilitate exchanges with other regional organizations and organize staff training. This is an excellent opportunity for the world to see what Taiwan has to offer. Also, in light of the Taiwan government’s New Southbound Policy, TDCC organized the first Investor Services Task Force Workshop together with Korea Securities Depository and Thailand Securities Depository. Industry experts and ACG members were invited to the workshop to share their views on innovative shareholder services to contribute to regional prosperity.

In addition to core businesses, TDCC also cares about the society that it operates in. By organizing the Financial Literacy for Youth training program, as well as a variety of sports and education assistance projects, TDCC has fulfilled its long-term commitment to narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and cultivating financial professionals for Taiwan. Also, TDCC has engaged in blood donation, charity fundraising and receipt (lottery) collection campaigns to make sure that the disadvantageous people are taken care of. TDCC’s efforts to give back to the society are well recognized. In 2019, it received the Corporate Citizen (CSR) Award of the CommonWealth Magazine, the Platinum Award for Result Reporting and Social Inclusion Award of the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards (TCSA), and 1111.com.tw’s Best Company To Work For Award.

For personal information protection, TDCC has fulfilled the requirements of the Taiwan Personal Information Protection and Administration System (TPIPAS) by introducing multiple new protection technologies and mechanisms and establishing dedicated leak prevention, information control and masking mechanisms to strengthen information security at system, network and user levels. A third-party institution is also employed to ensure that the protection and safety levels are up to the task as TDCC seeks to balance enhancement of our information services and protection of investors’ rights. Given our efforts in protecting personal information, TDCC was conferred the Award of Company with Excellent Personal Information Protection by the Institute for Information Industry in 2019.

Looking ahead, TDCC intends to continue business diversification and digitization. TDCC will continue to work with the government, adapt to changing market systems and promote industry development and financial digitization with innovative ideas. In addition to the introduction of agile development, in which TDCC encourages employees to resolve problems with digitally-savvy approaches, TDCC has also engaged in the development of robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent customer services in 2019 to improve service quality and the operating efficiency of post-trade market. TDCC is using cloud technology to improve the flexibility and efficiency of utilization of information resources. TDCC has built a Big Data Analysis and Application platform to compile data of securities and bill businesses so that the competent authorities can visualize the market conditions and supervise the market in a timely fashion through our cutting-edge, modern platform.

TDCC will continue to work for the common good of the financial market and collaborate with market participants in building a financial technology service ecosystem to better serve the digitized financial market in Taiwan.