Aggregate profits of local lenders last month shrank by nearly 80 percent from a year ago after this year's consumer credit abuse difficulties, data from the Financial Supervisory Commission showed yesterday.
Last month, the pre-tax income of 43 local banks amounted to NT$30.91 billion (US$946 million), down 76.9 percent from NT$134 billion a year ago, or 11.5 percent from September, the data showed.
The average non-performing loan ratio (NPL) dropped to 2.39 percent last month, down 0.01 percent from September. During the same period, the coverage ratio -- indicating capacity to cover bad debt -- jumped to 50.54 percent, up 2.9 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the nation's credit card business has declined for 13 consecutive months, with the number of credit cards dropping 14.75 percent from a year ago to 39 million cards last month.
The NPL of credit cards fell to 2.34 percent last month, down 0.13 percentage points from September, or 0.11 percent from a year ago.
Only three credit card issuers have an NPL exceeding 3 percent: the Central Trust of China (中央信託局) at 3.59 percent, Jih Sun International Bank (日盛國際商銀) at 4.69 percent and EnTie Bank (安泰銀行) at 4.86 percent.
Similarly, the number of cash cards fell to 2.3 million last month, down 37.33 percent from a year ago. The lending amount shrank to NT$193.9 billion by 28.12 percent from a year ago.
The bad loan ratio edged down slightly by 0.17 percentage points month-on-month to 6.9 percent, but rose 5.07 percentage points from a year earlier.
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