Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), which owns the nation’s biggest credit card issuer, posted a NT$7.52 billion (US$235.9 million) net profit in the first half of the year, up more than 20 times from NT$353 million for the same period last year, as the firm emerged further from the global financial crisis, company officials told an investors’ conference yesterday.
Net profit amounted to NT$3.756 billion in the second quarter, down 0.1 percent from NT$3.759 billion from the first quarter, the company’s statistics showed.
The figures translated into moderate earnings of NT$0.75 per share from January to June, and the company did not expect aggressive growth in the second half given the uncertain economic outlook worldwide, company officials said.
“The central bank is likely to raise benchmark interest rates by another 12.5 basis points later this year, but the move may not widen the interest spread much,” Chinatrust Financial president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) said.
Net interest income picked up 9.5 percent year-on-year to NT$6.06 billion in the second quarter, the company said in a statement. That marked a 2.9 percent gain from the first quarter. Chinatrust Financial expects the net interest margin to edge up to 1.5 percent in the second half, from the current 1.47 percent, the statement said.
Fee income slipped 4.5 percent to NT$6.12 billion in the second quarter from NT$6.40 billion in the first three months because of Europe’s fiscal debt woes, Wu said. Fee income, however, grew 16 percent on a yearly basis, he said.
Wu said Chinatrust Financial had filed an application on July 13 with the Financial Supervisory Commission on its planned expansion in China. He declined to elaborate on the plan, except to say that the company will focus on capital financing there.
“The market promises huge business opportunities and we will take advantage of our close ties with Chinese banks in exploring the market,” Wu said.
Wu also said Chinatrust Financial remained interested in a stake in Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) and will make moves if Taiwanese authorities reach a decision to reject the proposed acquisition plan by a Hong Kong consortium.
The consortium, comprising China Strategic Holdings Ltd (中策集團) and Primus Financial Holdings Ltd (博智金融), announced in October last year to acquire Nan Shan from American International Group Inc for US$2.15 billion. However, the deal is still awaiting regulatory approval because of concerns over the consortium’s funding sources and shareholding structure.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day