The Bank of Panhsin (板信銀行) aims to strengthen its financial health and expand its scale to help pave the way to becoming a listed lender in the next four years, company executives said yesterday.
The lender, which is based in New Taipei City (新北市), has made risk control its top priority over the past three years, during which its bad loan ratio dropped from 4.57 percent to 1.58 percent as of last month, Panshin chairman Liu Ping-hui (劉炳輝) said.
“The bank will continue to improve its capital structure while consolidating its niche as a small but efficient lender in the area,” Liu told a media briefing to celebrate the inauguration of its new -headquarters in Banciao District (板橋).
Photo: Kuo Yan-huei, Taipei Times
The 34-story building, with 20,000 ping (66,116m2) in floor space, is expected to boost Pan-hsin’s net worth from the current NT$9 per share to NT$20 per share after an asset reappraisal next year, Liu said.
Panhsin uses only three floors and plans to lease the extra space for rental income, he said.
“Some had offered to buy the building, but we prefer to make it our corporate base,” Liu said.
Pre-tax earnings equaled NT$150 million (US$5.21 million) in the first quarter and are expected to reach NT$600 million at the end of the year on the back of rental income, Liu said.
Panhsin, founded in 1957 as a credit cooperative and which -became a commercial bank in 1997, is not content with its current size or number of branches, bank spokesman Frank Teng (鄧福財) said.
“Besides pursuing organic growth, the bank is in talks with smaller peers and cooperatives to expand its scale,” Teng said.
Panhsin has a paid-in capital of NT$9.56 billion and has 46 branches nationwide.
“A deal may not be closed this year as acquisitions aren’t at the top of our agenda,” Teng said.
Rather, Panhsin aims to keep its nonperforming loan ratio below 1.4 percent toward the end of the year, while achieving loan growth of 5 percent, Teng said.
Teng expects demand from small and medium-sized companies to drive the loan growth as expansion in mortgage lending will become difficult after the implantation of the so-called luxury tax on short-term property transfers on June 1.
It will take Panhsin a few more years to improve its financial health and qualify to apply to trade shares in the local bourse, Teng said.
The ambition may be realized in four years, Panhsin president Chen An-shiung (陳安雄) recently told the media.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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