Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) yesterday vowed 15 percent growth in the number of new clients to 500,000 this year along with a 5 percent to 10 percent growth from loan businesses.
Taishin Financial, the nation’s fifth-largest financial service provider by assets, yesterday further heralded its improved bank profitability after its ratio of pre-tax income versus total assets jumped to the second-highest among 13 of its peers in the first quarter, up from 12th place in 2006, company chief operating officer Greg Gibb told an investors’ conference yesterday.
“As a result of restructuring efforts in the past two to three years, we’ve begun to see a stable profitability,” he said, adding that Taishin Financial also aims to become a leader in providing mobile banking services to smartphone users.
Among its peers, the company further reported the third-highest pre-tax earning per share of NT$0.52 as of last month, next to Fubon Financial Holding Co’s (富邦金控) NT$0.88 per share and Chinatrust Financial Holding Co’s (中信金控) NT$0.54 per share. In the first quarter, the company reported a rosy 195 percent year-on-year growth to NT$2.3 billion (US$72.1 million) in net profit, or NT$0.36 per share, on lowered funding costs and sustained improvements in both net interest incomes and fee incomes.
Looking ahead, an analyst with Concord Securities Co (康和證券), who requested anonymity, said he believes Taishin Financial should be able to continue its earning growth.
The market consensus is that its full-year earning should level between NT$7 billion and NT$9 billion, from last year’s NT$8.2 billion, the analyst said.
However, he is less optimistic for Taishin Financial to raise the number of its new clients to 500,000 after the integration of Chinfon Commercial Bank’s (慶豐銀行) credit card business in March brought in 260,000 new customers. Having re-launched on Monday, Taishin Financial’s securities brokerage arm will niche on investment banking and e-trading businesses by leveraging its bank distribution network, Gibb said.
Expressing a conservative view about the local economy’s prospects, company president Lin Keh-hsiao (林克孝) yesterday said that he expects the central bank to refrain from hiking interest rates this year.
Amid a weakening euro, Lin further expressed concerns over the competitiveness of the nation’s Europe-bound exports in the foreseeable future.
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