Yuanta Bank (元大銀行), the banking arm of Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控), is confident of meeting its earnings goal of NT$1.7 billion (US$53.2 million) in before-tax income for this year, up from NT$857 million last year, a company executive said yesterday.
The bank posted NT$460 million in before-tax income for the first quarter of this year, which accounts for 27 percent of the full-year earnings target, Yuanta Financial chairman Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章) told a media briefing yesterday.
“We remain optimistic that earnings in the upcoming months will be better than in the first three months of this year,” he said.
BRANCHES
The bank on Monday is slated to launch 18 new branches, that it acquired from Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行), for a total of 88 outlets nationwide.
The majority of those 88 outlets will be located in the greater Taipei area, where there is higher demand for financial services and business activities than in other cities in the country, he said.
“Yuanta Bank will transform from a small bank to a mid-sized metropolitan bank with enhanced competitiveness,” Yen said.
He also said that the bank had a bad-loan ratio as low as 0.76 percent as of last month, while its coverage ratio reached 230 percent.
SALARIES
To enhance its corporate governance, he said the bank would propose establishing a remuneration committee, whose makeup remains to be decided, at its annual shareholder meeting, which is scheduled for June 18.
If approved, Yuanta will be the first bank among its local peers to have a third-party committee to evaluate the salary level of bank executives, including that of the chairman.
He said that the bank has also recruited Leon Shen (沈臨龍), former director of the insurance department under the Ministry of Finance, to be on the bank’s independent board of directors.
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