The banking sector’s asset quality slightly improved in May, as the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio dropped by 0.02 percentage points to 1.61 percent, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed yesterday.
Bad loans by the nation’s 37 banks totaled NT$289.5 billion (US$8.8 billion) at the end of May — a decrease of NT$400 million from a year earlier, while a total of NT$18.006 trillion in loans were granted during the same period, the commission’s data showed.
Twenty-eight of the 37 banks had an NPL ratio of less than 2.5 percent, while 12 had NPL ratios of between 2.5 percent and 5 percent.
Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行) continued to top the list with an NPL ratio of 38.76 percent in May.
Meanwhile, the commission’s data showed that revolving interest recorded by 40 domestic credit card issuers reached NT$231.1 billion as of the end of May, with the average bad-loan ratio at 1.48 percent, down from 1.57 percent in April.
Chinfon continued to have the highest credit card bad-loan ratio of 8.06 percent, while the remaining 39 issuers had ratios below 3 percent, the commission’s press statement said.
The total lending among the nation’s 18 cash card issuers reached NT$77.1 billion at the end of May, with the NPL ratio at 3.31 percent, down from April’s 3.349 percent, the data showed.
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