The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said that it would lift limits that have prevented commercial banks from taking part in urban renewal projects.
The government grants “bulk rewards” for urban renewal projects, which allows developers to construct larger properties on plots of land of the same size.
However, banks have been reluctant to convert their underutilized real-estate assets into urban renewal projects, because of current guidelines requiring commercial banks to occupy and use at least 50 percent of the additional space gained after the project’s completion.
A proposed amendment would lower mandatory occupancy to 20 percent in a bid to increase urban renewal participation among commercial banks and their willingness to work with real-estate developers, the commission said.
In addition, the commission would add exclusions to current rules stipulating that loans extended for residential construction and construction by commercial banks must not exceed 30 percent of their aggregate deposits and bank debentures.
A restriction barring banks from extending mortgage loans with terms exceeding 30 years would also be lifted, the commission said.
The changes would allow banks to play a larger role in the government’s efforts to accelerate urban renewal projects across the nation through the removal of bottlenecks in lending, the commission added.
The amendments are expected to be ratified by the legislature in the first half of next year.
Separately, the commission reported that at the end of last month, loans extended to the nation’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rose NT$25.3 billion (US$783 million) from the previous month, with the amount in the first 11 months reaching NT$5.59 trillion.
At the end of last month SMEs represented 58.19 percent of private corporate lending, with a non-performing loan ratio of 0.48 percent, marking a 0.02 percentage point improvement.
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