Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) yesterday said its banking unit is expected to see high single-digit percentage growth in corporate lending this year, despite the COVID-19 outbreak.
Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) reported a 23.5 percent increase in corporate loans to NT$552 billion (US$18.46 billion) in the first quarter, from NT$447 billion a year earlier, the parent company told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
The loan book grew significantly in March as many big companies applied to increase borrowings to prepare for the fallout of the pandemic and to maintain their business operations, Taishin Financial head of wholesale banking Sharon Lin (林淑真) said, adding that most of them are short-term loans.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Lending to manufacturers accounted for 37.7 percent of its total corporate loans, followed by 20 percent for financial companies, 14.2 percent for property and construction firms, 10.6 percent for the retail and wholesale sector, and 6 percent for transportation and telecom firms, she said.
“With unclear visibility on corporate lending ahead, we would be more cautious, but still keep our original goal of high single-digit growth in corporate lending this year,” Taishin Financial president Welch Lin (林維俊) said.
The bank’s nonperforming loan ratio grew to 0.2 percent, up from 0.17 percent at the end of last year, as it recognized soured loans to a unit of China Energy Reserve and Chemicals Group Co (中國國儲能源) in Shanghai, it said.
As loans extended to industries vulnerable to the outbreak, such as tourism, hotels and aviation, made up less than 1 percent of its corporate lending, loan quality should remain sound this year, Sharon Lin said.
The bank is not worried about exposure to companies in the petrochemical industry, despite volatile crude oil prices, as the financial strength of state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) — its sole debtor domestically — remains solid, she said.
Despite the loan growth in the first quarter, net fee income from corporate banking fell 24.8 percent annually to NT$314 million, as many syndicated loans had been postponed due to the outbreak, the bank said.
Net interest margin (NIM), a gauge of banks’ profitability, remained flat from a quarter earlier at 1.21 percent, while it expects NIM to decline by 10.7 basis points by the end of this year due to the rates cuts by the US Federal Reserve and the central bank in March.
Regarding overseas expansion, the bank last month received approval from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission to set up an office in Shanghai, which would begin operations later this quarter.
It is still awaiting approval from national regulators to set up new branches in Long An, Vietnam, and Labuan, Malaysia, Welch Lin said.
He did not comment on reports that Taishin Financial plans to acquire Prudential Life Insurance Inc’s local unit, saying only that the company’s goal to have banking, insurance and securities units for better business development.
In other news, SinoPac Financial Holdings Co’s (永豐金控) appointment of former Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (中華經濟研究院) president Chen Shi-kuan (陳思寬) as chairperson was approved during its annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei.
Chen not only is SinoPac’s first chairwoman, she is the first among the nation’s seven privately owned financial holding companies.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
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
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS