State-run Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) — the main subsidiary of Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) — aims to increase its loan book by 4.2 percent this year, driven by corporate lending, senior bank executives said yesterday.
The target is lower than the 5 percent increase last year, as the bank-focused conglomerate is seeking to cut its dependence on interest income, while boosting wealth management and investment gains.
Hua Nan Bank, which drives more than 90 percent of the group’s profit, posted NT$12.49 billion (US$395.68 million) in net income last year, up 30.49 percent from 2013, company data showed.
The increase came even though the lender’s market share dropped to 6 percent last year, from 6.01 percent in 2013 and 6.19 percent in 2012. Interest income gained 10 percent to NT$24.94 billion last year, with fee income growing by 19 percent, according to company figures.
With market share stalling, the bank expects net interest margin to rise by 5 basis points this year, Hua Nan Bank executive vice president Derek Chang (張雲鵬) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
Toward that end, Hua Nan Bank is to strengthen its wealth management, and overseas and offshore banking businesses, as they generate much higher yields, Chang said.
Foreign currency-based lending can generate 11 percent returns while New Taiwan dollar operations might yield only 3 percent, Chang said.
Furthermore, the lender is to set up a wealth management platform with a view to growing the business by 26.9 percent this year on the top of a 33 percent increase to NT$3.31 billion last year, the company said.
The lender is expected to gain an extra NT$200 million in rental yields this year by leasing out partial floors at its new headquarters in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) and partial floors in its former headquarters in the Zhongzheng District (中正).
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is