Following four months of company-wide restructuring, 14 taekwondo suit-clad executives of the First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) yesterday vowed to achieve a NT$20 billion pre-tax profit in 2007, up from a projected NT$11 billion this year.
The state-run lender under First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), the nation's third-biggest financial-holding service provider in terms of assets, also expects to top the five biggest banks in Taiwan at that time, said First Commercial Bank president Liao Long-i (廖龍一).
PHOTO: CHEN LI-CHU, TAIPEI TIMES
"The bank has succeeded in restructuring its organization into a market-oriented one, which aims at providing better services to customers while highlighting the importance of risk management," Liao said, while briefing reporters what progress the lender had made after launching a restructuring plan in early July.
At the press conference, the management team wore taekwondo suits to symbolize the bank's willingness to fight its rivals. Liao said the six-year operational restructuring plan would usher in the second phase of the plan in the next two years.
"We are aiming to launch innovative financial products to reap profits in 2005," Liao said, adding that the bank hoped to further materialize its capital gains and meet the goal of a NT$20 billion pre-tax profit in 2007, thereby becoming one of the 20 biggest banks in Asia.
Between 2007 and 2009, the 6,000-employee-strong bank also expects to achieve a 15 percent return on equity with an NT$3 earning per share while internationalizing to become a key regional player in Asia-Pacific markets, he added.
Other strategies the bank high-lighted yesterday included efforts to enhance risk management and to lower its non-performing loan ratio to below 2 percent from the present figure of 2.4 percent.
The bank's restructuring plan will continue until 2009.
As the bank's financial consultant, Greg Gibb, principal of McKinsey & Company Inc, yesterday also expressed his confidence in the 100-year-old bank's transformation to beef up its competitiveness.
Gibb yesterday vowed to assist the bank in following through on its reform plan and to become one of the top three banks in Taiwan in terms of profit and size.
"The bank's reform plan aims to greatly increase its revenues instead of cutting down costs by putting down more investments in branching, marketing and human resources in the near future," Gibb said.
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