State-run Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀), the banking arm of Mega Financial Holdings Co (兆豐金控), expects to see a moderate growth in earnings this year, driven by corporate lending, top executives said yesterday.
With a focus on corporate banking, the lender posted NT$11.57 billion (US$393.14 million) in net income last year, translating into earnings per share of NT$1.80, the most profitable among state-run financial firms.
That marked an 8.51 percent increase from a year earlier on the back of recovering loan demand from exporters after the world emerged from the global financial crisis.
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
“We expect the growth momentum to be sustainable this year, albeit at a less aggressive rate,” said bank chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才), who also chairs Mega Financial.
Tsai refused to give any numbers, but expressed confidence that profitability would outpace the nation’s forecast GDP growth of 4.92 percent this year.
The bank expects total loans to expand 7.79 percent year-on-year to NT$1.37 trillion, while savings deposits would grow a modest 2.58 percent to NT$1.57 trillion, company data showed.
Its foreign exchange business is expected to increase 6.01 percent to NT$716.4 billion, it said.
The central bank’s credit tightening has had little impact on the bank, Tsai said, adding that home loans account for only 19 percent of overall lending, while corporate banking took up about 80 percent.
Mega Bank also aims to improve its asset quality this year, Tsai said.
The bank’s bad loan ratio dropped to 0.34 percent at the end of last year, from 0.95 percent a year earlier, while its coverage ratio rose from 100.53 percent to 227.14 percent, he said.
“The results were better than our internal target of 0.5 percent and 200 percent respectively,” Tsai said. “We will put more effort into loan recovery this year.”
Among listed financial firms, Mega Financial ranked second only to Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) in terms of profitability last year.
EXPANSIONS
The state-run group is actively seeking merger and acquisition opportunities to lift competition at home and globally, Tsai said.
“There is not a single day I don’t think about expansions,” he told reporters. “But I cannot disclose any details.”
Tsai has told colleagues to draw up an overseas expansion plan within a month to set up new branches or subsidiaries in markets in addition to China.
Mega Bank also intends to upgrade its representative office in Suzhou, China, into a branch in the second quarter. The lender signed a cooperation agreement with the Bank of China (中國銀行) last month and will ink another cooperation pact with China’s Bank of Communications (交通銀行) soon.
Mega Bank is also applying to open branches in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last