The Financial Supervisory Commission gave its approval yesterday to Hua Nan Commercial Bank's (華南銀行) application to merge with Hua Nan Bills Finance Corp (華南票券), both of which are subsidiaries of Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (華南金控).
The merger will be completed on May 30, the commission said in a statement.
Hua Nan Bank owns 42 percent of the bills finance company, Hua Nan Financial Holding owns about 47 percent, while outside investors hold the remainder.
After the merger, the number of domestic bill finance companies will decrease to 10 from 16 in 1998, the statement said.
Hua Nan Bank is the nation’s fifth-largest commercial bank, with a share of the domestic deposit market slightly above 5 percent as of the end of last year.
Hua Nan Bank’s decision to merge Hua Nan Bills Finance is not expected to have a substantial impact on its capitalization and credit profile, as the assets of the bills finance company are the equivalent of about 1.5 percent of the lender’s assets at the end of last year, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) analyst Chun Huang (黃俊榮) said in a statement on Wednesday.
Taiwan Ratings, a local subsidiary of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, offered a stable outlook on the lender’s long-term credit rating, the statement said.
The commission also approved yesterday Hua Nan Bank’s application to open branches in Macau and Sydney, Australia, pending the approval of regulators in both locations.
The bank has 184 local outlets and six branches in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Ho Chi Minh City, the FSC said.
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