Taiwan Regulator Probes Firms for Pressuring Staff to Sell ETFs

Taiwan’s financial regulator is probing 20 financial institutions over how they pushed staff to sell exchange-traded fund products, the latest sign of excessive competition in one of Asia’s biggest ETF markets.

The Financial Supervisory Commission will probe ten brokerages, nine asset managers and a bank for allegedly pressuring staff to meet sales quotas for newly launched ETFs, said Huang Hou-ming, deputy director-general of the FSC’s Securities and Futures Bureau. The regulator received complaint letters from employees across the firms, he said.

The probe comes after Taiwanese investors emerged as the biggest buyer of bond exchange-traded funds in Asia last year, ...