

Show HN: Taiwan Financial Institute SSL Status - imrehg
https://gergely.imreh.net/twbankssl/

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humanarity
There are truly a lot of banks in Taiwan.

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imrehg
The funny thing is that (as far as I know) there can never be any more than
this. Taiwan stopped giving out banking licenses, so you can only open up a
branch here if you buy someone else's. That happened, ABN Amro exited and ANZ
bought their stuff a few years back. Other banks that couldn't get in, got
some of their stuff locked up or expelled, because they came over from e.g. HK
and were doing banking services for some people.

Taiwanese financial regulations are a big hot mess, and if anything it seems
to be regressing. E.g. used to be you can connect your account at any bank to
Paypal (ebay / online selling anyone?), now there's only one single bank that
you can use, and they call it "innovation" and "competitive industry" (exact
words the clerk told me, couldn't help laughing into his face).

There's a lot to improve and nobody who can put the pressure on them to
actually do that...

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humanarity
That is funny about the licenses. I guess 20+ banks was finally enough. The
funniest name to me is Yuanta -- because it looks like "big money." I've heard
it said the reason for relatively more banks is because ethnically Chinese
people save more than Westerners, who prefer to spend more, thus requiring
fewer banks. You may be interested to know that HK stopped giving out street
vendor (aka dai pai dong) licenses, with the only way to get one being
marriage to a licensee, leading to dwindling numbers of street vendors --
another thing Taiwan doesn't seem to be short on!

