Standard Chartered "is open to" acquiring more banks to add outlets in northern Taiwan, McCabe said. Only nine of its 86 branches are in Taipei.
Standard Chartered's Taiwan operations had a pretax loss of NT$112 million (US$3.4 million) in the first five months of this year, narrowing from NT$1.6 billion a year earlier, data from the Financial Supervisory Commission showed. A surge in defaults on credit and cash card loans in 2005 and last year hurt earnings of banks in the nation.
McCabe hopes the bank will report a profit this year, helped by its Hsinchu acquisition. The bank focused mainly on integrating Hsinchu in the first half, he said. The merger was completed last month, three months ahead of schedule.
Standard Chartered, which now has 4,300 employees in Taiwan, plans to add 250 salespeople before the end of this year to expand wealth management services, McCabe said. It will begin private banking next year, he said.
Taiwan had 210,000 people at home and abroad with net assets of at least US$1 million in 2005, controlling about US$585 billion in wealth, according to the Boston Consulting Group, which advises private banks.
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