Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan's second-biggest financial services company, said it wants to expand into South Korea after strengthening its position in the domestic market with the purchase of Taipeibank (台北銀行).
Fubon, which is 15 percent owned by Citigroup Inc, said it's attracted by the size of the South Korean financial industry.
"We have been thinking about South Korea, it's about the same size as Taiwan in terms of financial asset size," Ng Wing Fai, managing director of Fubon said in an interview.
He added that Fubon is still "trying to understand the market."
Fubon, which owns Taiwan's biggest non-life insurer, a brokerage, a life insurer and a lender, is looking to expand on its operations and elsewhere in North Asia to boost earnings and compete more effectively in an increasingly deregulated industry.
South Korea's Maeil Business newspaper reported on Tuesday that Fubon and three other companies were contenders to buy a stake in Chohung Bank, South Korea's fourth-largest lender.
"It's very early stage," Ng said. "I think it's step one of a 10-step process, we are right at the beginning of a long road."
The company is paying a preliminary NT$80.3 billion (US$2.3 billion) in shares for Taipeibank, the nation's 11th-largest lender by assets, which is controlled by the city government. That will reduce Citigroup's stake.
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