State-run Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (TCFH, 合庫金控) yesterday said that it stands by its goal to pursue stable profit growth this year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted central banks to aggressively cut interest rates.
“The rate cuts at home and abroad would drag the net interest margin by 10 basis points,” Taiwan Cooperative Financial president Chen Mei-tsu (陳美足) told investors in a webcast.
The net interest margin was 1.03 percent at the end of last quarter, 3 basis points lower than three months earlier, while interest spread fell 6.8 basis points to 1.359 percent, company data showed.
The local market has not fully assimilated the central bank’s March 19 rate cut of 25 basis points, Chen said.
The US Federal Reserve in March cut rates twice to a range of 0 to 0.25 percent in a drastic move to avert a credit crunch after Washington shut its borders and most states closed nonessential businesses, putting tens of millions of people out of work.
Taiwan Cooperative Financial said that it remains confident of loan growth of 3 percent this year, driven by companies shifting production back to Taiwan from China, which would require them to take out loans and acquire industrial property.
Land financing rose 8.5 percent year-on-year in the first three months of this year, while mortgage operations added 2.7 percent, said the company, one of Taiwan’s largest real-estate loan operators.
The pandemic is temporarily slowing property purchases, which might regain traction once infections slow. Taiwan has not reported new confirmed cases in the past week.
Taiwan Cooperative Financial aims to tap businesses linked to the nation’s fast-aging population, raising their contribution from reverse mortgages, trust fees and wealth management to 15 percent of overall income.
The company posted NT$4.1 billion (US$136.9 million) in net profit last quarter, a 0.96 percent increase from a year earlier, but outperforming other state-run peers.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS