Local banks’ aggregate pretax profit fell for a third consecutive month in July, declining 3.6 percent annually to NT$31.99 billion (US$1.08 billion), as most lenders’ overseas branches were still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Tuesday.
However, the drop was smaller than the declines of 19.2 percent in June and 17.8 percent in May, the commission’s data showed.
In July, the combined pretax profit of banks’ overseas branches halved from a year earlier to NT$1.75 billion, due to lower interest income, volatile investment returns and higher loan-loss provisions amid the pandemic, the commission said.
For the first seven months of this year, the overseas branches’ cumulative pretax profit fell 47.2 percent year-on-year to NT$13.48 billion, the data showed.
The banks’ local businesses also saw their pretax profit dip 0.6 percent to NT$20.51 billion in July, resulting in a 14.4 percent decline to NT$117.6 billion for the January-to-July period, data showed.
Overall, Taiwanese banks’ pretax profit for the first seven months dropped 13.1 percent year-on-year to NT$196.41 billion, data showed.
As of the end of July, banks’ average non-performing loan ratio remained flat from a month earlier at 0.25 percent, the commission said.
Separately, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Monday reported a pretax loss of NT$21.3 billion for the first seven months, compared with a pretax profit of NT$33.1 billion a year earlier.
The state-run refiner attributed the results to falling crude oil prices early this year, although oil prices have stabilized in the past few months, CPC vice president Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said.
The collapse of international oil prices from January to May resulted in heavy cumulative losses for CPC, but it is not possible for the refiner to adjust domestic gasoline and diesel prices upward, because of the government’s promise to keep Taiwan’s prices the lowest in Asia, Fang said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Power Co (台電) reported pretax profit of NT$8 billion for the first seven months, up 128.3 percent year-on-year from a year earlier, while Taiwan Water Corp’s (台水) pretax profit totaled NT$122 million over the same period, up 79.4 percent year-on-year.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS