Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation

Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) representatives attended the 9th Annual Multinational Pensions Forum organized by J.P. Morgan in Paris, France in October. Sherman Lin, TDCC Chairman & CEO, was invited as a panelist to discuss “What does success look like in achieving good governance” with other panelists from J.P. Morgan, the biggest commercial bank in the world, Vice CEO of Universities Superannuation Scheme, and CIO of Aviva Retirement Fund. They talked about the key elements of good governance and how to make good use of Fintech accordingly.

Starting this year, all TWSE-listed and TPEx-listed companies in Taiwan have adopted 100% of e-voting. TDCC held “100% E-voting: An Enhancement of Corporate Governance Forum” on March 5 2018. In the forum, Taiwanese issuers, as well as domestic and foreign institutional investors witnessed this milestone together. Since this was quite an achievement in corporate governance, J.P. Morgan invited Lin to join the 9th Annual Multinational Pensions Forum in October, so Lin could share the crucial factors in corporate governance and experience with international institutional investors. Mr. Lin also talked about the service development of environment, society, and governance (ESG) as well as investor relations (IR).

The 9th Annual Multinational Pensions Forum held by J.P. Morgan invited over 60 retirement management companies from eleven countries on the continents of Europe, America, and Asia, as well as participants including governments and private pension funds, representing up to US$1 trillion retirement assets. The forum discussed the retirement challenges with actual cases, hoping to come up with the best principles for defined benefit and defined contribution. Lin was the first Asian speaker for the forum in the last five years. He shared with nearly a hundred pension investment executives about the progress in corporate governance Taiwan has made in the past ten years, how TDCC utilized technology and big data to fulfill corporate governance, as well as the exercise of ESG and corporate social responsibility (CSR). These achievements are very meaningful for Taiwan’s market.

In recent years, corporate governance, ESG, and CSR have gradually become important factors for institutional investors who aim for long-term investment like pensions all over the world. They are the most frequently-discussed topics when it comes to communication between issuers and international investors. In response to Taiwan’s New Corporate Governance Blueprint, TDCC is assisting issuers to strengthen their conversations with shareholders and earn support from international investors. Taiwan is expecting to combine domestic and international corporate governance assessments as well as the ESG assessments at the end of the year. TDCC has partnered with international voting research institutes to launch the TDCC Investor Relations Platform (TDCC IR Platform) which will provide issuers with their ESG performances and provide institutional investors with issuers’ information. The TDCC IR Platform will come in both Chinese and English. Its services will improve the communication quality between issuers and institutional investors, and will also make Taiwan’s capital market more outstanding in the international community.