Cathay Financial profit rises 10-fold

Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation's biggest financial services company by assets, saw a 10-fold increase in second-quarter profit as its banking unit benefited from fewer credit-card defaults.

Net income rose to NT$10.6 billion (US$323 million) from NT$1.04 billion a year earlier. Earnings were derived by subtracting first-quarter results from unaudited first-half figures released in a statement today.

Profits at Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), the banking unit of Cathay Financial, more than doubled to NT$5.54 billion in the first half, according to a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on July 5.

"The company remains on a solid track of earnings recovery, especially at its bank unit," said Murphy Huang (黃耀德), who manages about NT$4 billion at PCA Securities Investment Trust Co (保誠投信), before the figures were released.

Huang said a rising stock market may have boosted Cathay Financial's second-quarter profit.

The firm's wholly owned Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation's largest life insurer, held NT$234 billion of domestic equities on March 31. The benchmark TAIEX index rose 13 percent in the quarter, compared with a 1.4 percent gain a year earlier.

Banks are recovering from a surge in defaults on credit-card loans that hurt their earnings in the past two years. Banks wrote off NT$30.5 billion of credit-card debt in the first five months of the year, about half the amount in the same period in 2005, according to the Financial Supervisory Commission.

Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) also posted profits increasing almost threefold to NT$2.11 billion in the second quarter as loan provisions fell and income from fees rose. The company's earnings were derived by subtracting first-quarter profit from January to June.

"Loan provisions fell sharply in the second quarter, and thanks to growing wealth management business our fee income rose,'' Taishin Financial's chief financial officer Carol Lai (賴昭吟) said.

The company's wholly owned Taiwan Securities Co (台証證券) reported profit of NT$1.2 billion in the first half, 10 times the NT$110 million for the same period last year, Taishin Financial said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Taishin Financial booked a loss of about NT$900 million from selling 2.5 percent of Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) to Aegon NV, the second-largest Dutch insurer, in June, Lai said. The firm was ordered to sell the stake after its capital adequacy fell short of required levels.

Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), meanwhile, posted a 26 percent increase in second-quarter profit to NT$5.79 billion, and Fubon Financial Holding Co's (富邦金控) profit soared 12-fold in the second quarter to NT$5.49 billion.

For the first six months, Cathay Financial's unaudited profit more than doubled to NT$20.6 billion. Taishin Financial's unaudited profit was NT$3.93 billion, and that was NT$8.66 billion for Mega Financial and NT$8.94 billion for Fubon Financial during the same period.