Despite a strong first-quarter performance, First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) yesterday said it was maintaining its conservative growth guidance for this year amid concern over Europe’s worsening debt problem.
“We are holding on to our projection of a 5 percent growth in loans this year,” First Financial investor relations head Annie Lee (李淑玲) said. “We met the target in the first three months, but are coming under pressure as uncertainty over the macroeconomy deepens.”
The state-run financial services provider reported NT$3.02 billion (US$101.97 million) in net income during the January-March period, jumping 50.9 percent from a year earlier, thanks to fast-growing demand for foreign-currency loans from Taiwanese firms operating in China, Lee said.
Total loans expanded by 5.3 percent to NT$1.38 trillion in the first quarter from NT$1.31 trillion three months earlier, pushing the loan-to-deposit ratio to a record-high of 86.05 percent, company data showed.
The ratio for loans to deposits denominated in New Taiwan dollars climbed to 87 percent last month, while that for foreign currencies reached 81 percent, indicating lower idle funds and room for growth, Lee said.
She expected both figures to edge up for the remainder of the year, saying an aggressive advance was unlikely because of restrictions on banks’ exposure.
Taiwanese lenders have pressed for an extension of yuan financing services — currently limited to offshore banking units — to domestic banking units, allowing them to boost profitability. With the second-largest service network among domestic peers in the region, First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the group’s flagship subsidiary, is poised to take advantage of the proposed regulatory easing, Lee said.
Overseas operations generated 35.7 percent of pre-tax earnings in the first quarter, compared with 30.5 percent a year ago, with Greater China accounting for 60 percent of the increase, according to company statistics.
Consequently, First Financial is more eager to expand in the region than at home, Lee said.
The conglomerate is also waiting for regulatory cues about plans by its British partner, Aviva PLC, to sell a 49 percent stake in the life insurance subsidiary, First-Aviva Life Insurance Co (第一英傑華人壽).
“We will start to search for new partners once the Financial Supervisory Commission allows Aviva PLC to exit the local market,” Lee said.
The life insurance, securities and investment trust units all reported gains in the first quarter, but the trend may not be sustainable amid market volatility, Lee said.
The government’s plan to tax capital gains on securities investments is adding to the weak sentiment, she said.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”