SinoPac Financial Holdings (永豐金控) said yesterday it expects income from fees to expand 20 percent this year, driven by increasing corporate lending, wealth management and credit card operations amid continued economic recovery.
SinoPac Financial posted NT$5.09 billion (US$172.91 million) in net income last year, soaring 4.6 times from that of a year earlier, as its banking and securities subsidiaries emerged from the global financial crisis, company statistics showed.
“We aim to achieve stable growth [in earnings] this year on further improvement in corporate lending and fee income,” the group said in a statement.
The bank-centric group expects strong loan demand from small and medium-sized enterprises this year, while recovering confidence would boost wealth management and credit card businesses, increasing total fee incomes by 20 percent.
Net profit from Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) totaled NT$3.46 billion last year, rising 66 percent from a year earlier and taking up 68,02 percent of the group’s net earnings, the report said.
Net interest income expanded 22 percent to NT$12.02 billion last year, while net fee income picked up 20 percent to NT$3.71 billion, the report said.
Net interest margin averaged 1.25 percent last year and is expected to widen this year as the central bank continues mild interest rate hikes to rein in property prices and inflationary pressures.
SinoPac Securities (永豐金證券) contributed NT$1.48 billion in net income last year, reversing a net loss of NT$490 million in 2009, the report said.
The group said it aims to increase the brokerage’s market share this year by helping Taiwanese firms in China issue debts in Chinese yuan, among other expansion moves.
Recently, the capital leasing subsidiary approved a US$20 million investment plan to set up a capital leasing firm in Nanjiang, the group said, adding Bank SinoPac intends to establish a representative office there to increase overall presence in China.
The stock of SinoPac Financial ended flat at NT$12.95 yesterday.
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
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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