A veteran community banker from central Taiwan yesterday took the helm of the Agricultural Bank of Taiwan (ABT, 全國農業金庫), vowing to improve the bank’s finances and carry on with the mission of enhancing the well-being of the nation’s farmers.
Liu Song-lin (劉松齡), 58, former head of the Ta-chia Town Farmers’ Association (大甲鎮農會) in Taichung County, said the bank, financially weak because of its organic makeup, also suffered losses from the US subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent credit crunch.
The government owns a 49 percent stake in the bank that was created in May 2005 to offer relatively easy credit access to farmers and fishermen and to guide the credit operations of over 340 farmers’ and fishermen’s associations nationwide. Together those associations have a majority control of the bank.
Liu said under his leadership, the bank would seek to lower its investment and credit risks and expand its income.
The new ATB chairman said he knew that goal would not be easy to reach, but he would try his best to pursue it with help from the bank’s colleagues.
With a master’s degree in public affairs from National Tunghai University, Liu worked as chief secretary of Ta-chia town farmers’ association for the last 23 years.
The association ranked as one of the 10 best performers among all community lenders over the last seven years.
Liu added he would also seek to set up more ATB outlets, adding that currently there is only one branch in Taipei, in addition to five branches across the country.
Shih Ping-huang (施炳煌), an ATB supervisor, said that while the bank’s performance is not satisfactory, it reduced its bad loan ratio from 13.48 percent upon its creation to 5.79 percent in June.
Shih urged Liu to retain all ATB employees, saying they are the bank’s “valuable assets.”
Liu will steer the bank with Su Sung-huei (蘇松輝) serving as its president. Su, 62, was former manager of the Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行).
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