State-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) this year aims to diversify its income sources and boost earnings contributions from non-banking units, chairman Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said yesterday.
Wu unveiled the goals after the conglomerate reported that net income last year rose 21 percent annually to NT$14.59 billion (US$473 million), thanks to improving corporate banking and financial trading operations.
Last year, bank-focused financial institutions fared better than life insurance-focused peers, which took a hit in the second half from heavy hedging costs amid volatility in the foreign-exchange market.
“It is time for Hua Nan Financial to take action to diversify its sources of income, as it has depended heavily on interest income,” Wu told a media briefing.
Interest income accounted for 53.65 percent of overall profits at main subsidiary Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), much higher than the sector’s 38.5 percent average, a report by the Legislative Yuan showed.
The bank is to expand its wealth management operations, product lines and sales channels to boost fee and trade incomes, Wu said, adding that exchange-traded funds are popular product options among investment tools.
Employees can seek to enhance cross-selling benefits by taking advantage of branches at home and abroad, he said.
The group would hire more financial professionals to improve personnel quality toward the end of the year, Wu said.
Hua Nan Financial is also seeking to grow multiple profit drivers and raise earnings contributions from securities, insurance and other subsidiaries, Wu said.
The securities arm has expressed its intention to pursue the goal and the insurance division is likely to follow suit soon, he said.
The banking unit generates more than 90 percent of profits at the company.
Hua Nan Financial would deepen financial technology operations, as technology is reshaping the banking industry, Wu said.
The company would closely track big data trends and tap further into mobile payments and other digital banking businesses, he added.
Hua Nan Bank is looking to grow its consumer banking business by 3 percent and mortgage operations by 2 percent from about NT$500 billion at the end of last year, a company official said, adding that wealth management and evolving credits segments are expected to grow by 1 percent.
The lender last month introduced three new credit cards targeting high net worth clients, the official said.
The bank has 1.07 million credit cards in circulation, with the ratio of effective cards standing at 76.5 percent, they said.
Net interest margin held at 1.43 percent last year and might stay flat this year, the official said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by