State-run Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) aims to increase its loan book by 4 percent this year with profit margin gains of 4 basis points on the back of interest rate hikes and portfolio adjustments.
A rate hike of 12.5 basis points by the US Federal Reserve could widen interest spread by 4 basis points and net interest margin by 2.05 basis points for assets denominated in foreign currencies, said Jonathan Huang (黃俊智), an executive vice president at the bank, the main unit of Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) and source of income.
The Fed has indicated room for three rate hikes this year, but markets expect faster adjustments due to rising inflationary pressures.
Foreign currency interest spread stood at 2.09 percent and net interest margin at 1.33 percent in December last year, which were mixed results if compared with 1.96 percent and 1.37 percent respectively a year earlier, company data showed.
The profitability gauges fared softer for assets in New Taiwan dollar terms, with interest spread of 1.43 percent and net interest margin of 1.01 percent in the final quarter of last year, compared with 1.47 percent and 1.03 percent respectively a year earlier.
Most analysts expect Taiwan’s central bank to leave policy rates unchanged during its board meeting on March 22, but a rate hike of 12.5 basis points would affect interest spread by 1.8 basis points and net interest margin by 1.35 basis points, Huang said.
Hua Nan Bank, which generated more than 90 percent of the parent company’s total earnings, saw its net income decline 16 percent last year to NT$11.44 billion (US$390.96 million) due to significantly higher provisioning costs.
“The bank is to strengthen relationships with corporate and retail clients through active development of mobile payment, blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies,” Hua Nan Bank president David Cheng (鄭永春) said, adding that the effort would be more evident in the second half of this year.
In a positive sign for the bank, fee income grew 5.6 percent annually to NT$6.3 billion last year, company data showed.
The bank has 1 million credit cards in circulation, making it the first state-run lender to achieve such a scale, Cheng said.
Meanwhile, the lender’s New York branch has increased its number legal compliance officials from two to seven after failing to pass a regulatory inspection last year, Cheng 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
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
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