As new home mortgages granted by Taiwan’s five major state-run banks reached a five-month high, the average interest rate on new housing loans hit a record low, central bank data released on Tuesday showed.
Total new mortgages granted by Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) increased 20.06 percent month-on-month and 31.56 percent year-on-year to NT$60.41 billion (US$2.01 billion) last month, the data showed.
Total new mortgages extended by the five banks for all of last year amounted to NT$592.55 billion, the highest since August in 2011.
The rise in mortgages reflected that December is usually the peak month for the domestic housing market.
It was also in line with the latest housing transaction data released by the six major municipalities, which show that transactions rose 13.3 percent month-on-month and 24.4 percent year-on-year in the six cities to 22,316 units last month, with Taichung posting the highest monthly growth of 30.8 percent and Taoyuan reporting the biggest annual increase of 50 percent, according to local governments’ tallies.
The total number of housing transactions in the six major municipalities increased 9.4 percent to 232,031 units last year from a year ago.
Despite rising mortgage demand, the five banks’ average mortgage rate fell to 1.608 percent per year last month, which was down from the previous month’s 1.617 percent and the lowest on record, the central bank data showed.
The central bank attributed the situation to lenders competing with each other to offer preferential rates for quality clients, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported on Wednesday.
Some local lenders were reportedly offering mortgage rates as low as 1.56 percent annually for military personnel, civil servants and public school teachers, while rates for others were around 1.6 percent, the newspaper said, citing central bank officials.
Demand for mortgages was fueled by the current housing market being mostly focused on owner-occupied or self-use homes while the general performance of the housing market last year was stable, the Liberty Times reported, citing central bank officials.
Separately, the five state-run banks last month saw their average lending rates fall to 1.398 percent, down 0.017 percentage points from 1.415 percent in November, which the central bank attributed to a decline of 0.184 percentage points in the interest rate associated with capital expenditure loans to 1.633 percent.
Thanks to the need for funds by returning Taiwanese companies, capital expenditure loans totaled NT$800.05 billion last year, the highest on record, while the average capital expenditure lending rate was 1.81 percent, the lowest since 2011, central bank data showed.
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
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
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS