SinoPac Financial Holding Co (永豐金控) is aiming to consolidate its leadership in yuan-linked business this year, which it expects will be favorable for earnings growth due to the sustained global economic recovery and financial deregulation at home, company chairman S.C. Ho (何壽川) said yesterday.
“The domestic easing of regulations on offshore banking and securities units provides many business opportunities that the company aims to capitalize on to maintain our top-notch ranking in offering yuan-linked products and services this year,” Ho said.
SinoPac Financial’s strategy is in line with the increasing weight of the yuan in the region, with the Chinese currency accounting for 12 percent of total deposits in Hong Kong, Ho said.
In Taiwan, that figure is a mere 3 percent as of late December last year, suggesting that there is ample room for growth in the domestic sector, he added.
China’s currency constitutes 6 percent, about 14 billion yuan (US$2.31 billion), of total deposits at the group’s main subsidiary, Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), after approaching 200 billion yuan in Taiwan at the end of last year.
That amount is likely to double this year with the expected implementation of more financially liberal policies, Ho said.
Although SinoPac Financial is interested in expanding its scale through mergers and acquisitions, it is more urgent for the company to bolster its product lines to take advantage of the yuan’s rising popularity, the chairman said.
That is why Bank SinoPac is seeking to partner with the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICB, 中國工商銀行) so it can amplify its product sales in the Chinese market, he added.
However, the banks’ partnership may not become a reality until the cross-strait service trade pact signed last year clears the legislature, Ho said, adding that the group’s plan to set up a full-service securities house in China likely also hinges on the trade agreement’s passage.
SinoPac Financial posted NT$10.71 billion (US$354 billion) in net income last year, an increase of 11.2 percent from a year earlier, company data showed.
SinoPac Financial shares rose 2.13 percent to NT$14.4 yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX’s 0.95 percent rise, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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],”