Taichung Commercial Bank (台中商銀) plans to open its first overseas branch in Malaysia this year as Taiwanese companies have increasingly shifted their manufacturing facilities from China to Southeast Asia, senior executives said yesterday.
The Taichung-based lender has gained regulatory approval to establish a branch and a representative office in Malaysia, as it seeks to take advantage of the rapidly growing economy in Southeast Asia and support the government’s New Southbound Policy.
“We plan to open the offices by the end of this year at the latest as the bank’s first foray into overseas markets,” executive vice president Chen Cheng-yuan (陳振源) told an investors’ conference at the Taiwan Stock Exchange in Taipei.
The venture would help the 65-year-old bank to cultivate talent and attract new clients to diversify its income sources, Chen said.
Interest income accounted for 71.84 percent of NT$3.63 billion (US$122.61 million) in net profit last year, company data showed, with fee income contributing 21.49 percent.
The results are a 3.4 percent increase from a year earlier, while earnings per share edged up 0.92 percent to NT$1.1.
The bank had previously planned to enter China and Hong Kong, but has gained little headway in clearing regulatory obstacles, Chen said.
The government’s policy lent support to a strategy adjustment to tap Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian markets instead, Chen said.
Chen, who was in Vietnam recently, said Taiwanese firms there are expanding their operations and are in need of financial assistance.
“That suggests ample business growth potential,” Chen said.
Ease of market access and legal compliance costs are top concerns for the lender when evaluating overseas expansions, he said.
Since Vietnam no longer issues new banking licenses, Taichung Bank is looking into whether to establish a representative office there and conduct business via its offshore banking unit, Chen said.
Foreign-currency loans and operations generate higher yields, he said.
Net interest margin improved to 1.28 percent last year, from 1.27 percent in 2016, company data show.
Excess liquidity continues to squeeze the profitability of businesses operating using the local currency, Chen said.
Apart from overseas expansions, Taichung Bank intends to consolidate its relations with small and medium-sized enterprises in central Taiwan, its mainstay clientele.
The lender is looking at a modest increase for its loan book this year as the economy remains on the course of expansion, but uncertainty lingers, Chen said.
In addition, Taichung Bank is courting high net-worth clients in central Taiwan, where it keeps 50 of its 81 branches, he said.
Such clients might need personalized banking services the lender offers, Chen said.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day