Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan's fourth-largest financial group by assets, reported weakening first-quarter profits on rising bad loan provisions, caused by defaulted loans on credit and cash cards, the company announced yesterday.
After-tax net income totaled NT$3.2 billion (US$101 million), or NT$0.42 per share, in the January-March period, the company said in its quarterly statement.
The first-quarter net income of NT$3.2 billion represents a 24.7 percent decline from NT$4.26 billion in the first quarter of last year.
Fubon Financial attributed the fall to an additional NT$2 billion provision for bad loans made by its banking unit Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), the statement said.
Overall, the financial service provider increased its bad loan provisions to NT$7.86 billion in the first quarter, the company said. Fubon Financial aims to spread its provisions expenses over the remaining months of the year to cope with the growing debt burden from credit cards, chief financial officer Cheng Hui-ming (
Fubon said on March 31 that it had revised last year's profit to NT$10.6 billion, down from a previously reported NT$14.3 billion, after Taipei Fubon Bank posted an additional NT$5 billion in provisions for bad loans. The revised figures show Fubon Financial lost NT$2 billion in the fourth quarter, against a profit of NT$1.7 billion reported on March 2.
Meanwhile, another subsidiary, Fubon Securities (
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is