Daniel Wu: Change for survival

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Fifty years of Asia The profiles: 23 of the biggest names in Asia Zafrul Aziz Laura Cha Wei Sun Christianson Piyush Gupta Uday Kotak Reuben Lai Boon Chye Loh Agus Martowardojo Raghuram Rajan Jahja Setiaatmadja Weijian Shan Alan Smith Teh Hong Piow Tian Huiyu Sun Yu Nestor Tan Wee Ee Cheong Kartika Wirjoatmodjo Peter Wong Wu Wei Joseph Yam Zeti Akhtar Aziz

CTBC, through its legacy institutions, started out as Taiwan’s first private securities underwriter in 1966. It evolved into a trust and investment business in 1971, brought the first credit cards to Taiwan in 1974 and in 1992 became a private commercial bank when licences were first awarded. In 2002, it became a financial holding company when that licensing regime opened up.

In recent years, the group’s priority has been expanding into insurance, buying the Taiwanese operations of Metlife, Manulife and Taiwan Life in the space of five years. Along the way it changed its name from Chinatrust in 2013.

“China is too confusing a name,” says CTBC president Daniel Wu.