Local life insurers in January saw their foreign exchange losses improve from a year earlier due to less volatility and an easing of requirements by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), but their combined pretax profits plunged amid headwinds, FSC data showed.
Insurers booked foreign exchange gains of NT$15.4 billion (US$500.4 million) for January, as the New Taiwan dollar depreciated by 0.02 percent against the US dollar over the period, but those gains were offset by hedging losses of NT$32.5 billion, the data showed.
Net foreign exchange losses for local life insurance companies in January totaled NT$2.26 billion, down from net losses of NT$30.1 billion a month earlier and NT$2.58 billion a year earlier, the commission said.
The eased regulations on foreign exchange reserves that took effect in January allow life insurers to use their reserves to offset up to 60 percent of their foreign exchange gains or losses, up from 50 percent previously, when hedging costs exceed 2 percent, it said.
Life insurers may add 0.06 percent of their foreign currency positions to their reserve each month, up from 0.05 percent when their hedging costs are less than 2 percent, which is expected to expand the size of the reserves by NT$4.3 billion per year, it said.
The system allows insurers to reserve part of their retained profit to absorb potential foreign exchange losses, it added.
Besides the eased regulations, life insurers last month endured less losses, as there was less foreign exchange volatility than in the same period a year earlier, Insurance Bureau Deputy Director-General Wang Li-hui (王麗惠) said.
In January last year, the NT dollar strengthened against the US dollar, causing hedging losses of NT$155.7 billion for the month, commission data showed.
However, life insurers in January saw their pretax profits dive 81.4 percent annually from NT$24.7 billion to NT$4.6 billion, while property insurers reported pretax profits totaling NT$1.1 billion for the period, down 38 percent year on year, the data showed.
Life insurers booked a combined net value of NT$1.26 trillion, a 16.7 percent drop from NT$1.51 trillion a year earlier, the commission said.
FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) on Wednesday said that life insurers could promote their foreign currency-denominated insurance policies to prevent foreign exchange risks.
However, the commission forbids them from promising a high return rate, as that would mean they face higher investment risks, he added.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”