Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (合作金控) aims to shut at least five bank branches next year as the state-run firm takes steps to strengthen its financial proficiency and ease the nation’s overcrowded banking market, recently installed chairman Leon Shen (沈臨龍) said last week.
Shen, who took the helm of the nation’s fourth largest financial service provider by assets three months ago, said the company plans to downsize its banking network with at least five unprofitable branches in less populated districts to be merged with adjacent ones next year.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), the banking subsidiary and main source of income, has 296 branches nationwide after integrating with the state-run Farmers Bank (農民銀行) in May 2006.
“The branches are both assets and burdens for the group that will seek to strengthen its operations rather than increase its economies of scale under my stewardship,” Shen said in a public function on Thursday.
The company is still assessing the ideal size for the bank but Shen said 200 branches should suffice, given the overcrowded and fragmented market.
The planned downsizing would not be easy, Shen said, as workers unions are bound to protest and ask lawmakers to intervene.
To remove resistance, the company will keep in payroll intact but encourage early retirement with favorable compensation terms, he said.
With a doctoral degree in economics, Shen, 60, is a former chairman of the state-funded Taiwan Asset Management Co (台灣金聯資產管理) and served in different positions under the Ministry of Finance prior to that.
The bank expanded into a financial holding firm in December last year after teaming up with French banking group BNP Paribas to create an asset management unit in June last year and a life insurance subsidiary in 2010.
BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽) is endeavoring to break even next year and BNP Paribas TCB Asset Management Co (合庫巴黎證券投資信託) has yet to set a timetable as market volatility challenges earnings, Shen said.
While positive about business opportunities in Chinese yuan, Shen said Taiwan Cooperative Bank is no match for state-run Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) or First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) in offering yuan-linked products and services. It will instead pursue a balanced growth, Shen said.
Currently, offshore banking operations generate 23 percent of Taiwan Cooperative Bank’s revenue and may contribute 25 percent next year, compared with 45 percent at Mega Bank, he said.
Taiwan Cooperative Financial may achieve profits of NT$9 billion (US$308 million) this year after the lending arm posted NT$591 million in net income for last month, lifting the bank’s total earnings to NT$6.44 billion as of last month, financial analysts said.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS