Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) will continue boosting its online banking service Richart to protect its lead as three Web-only banks gear up for their launch before the end of the year, the company told an investors’ conference in Taipei yesterday.
“We currently have a total of 2.25 million digital savings accounts, which suggests a market share of more than 40 percent. With our award-winning Richart service, we are confident about maintaining our advantage,” said Oliver Shang (尚瑞強), president of Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), the banking arm of Taishin Financial.
The bank in August launched a financial ecosystem, dubbed Richart Life, in cooperation with more than 20 partners in various industries such as wholesale, retail, department stores, tourism, air travel, food and dining, telecoms, e-commerce and food delivery, Shang said.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
As the bank offers reward points for consumers who use the services in the shared marketplace, more than 1 million users have signed up as members over the past three months, he said.
“We will continue expanding our ecosystem, providing more rewards for our users and enabling them to conveniently shop with our payment tools,” Shang said.
Taishin Bank reported a net profit of NT$3.53 billion (US$122.44 million) for last quarter, down 2 percent from a quarter earlier.
Net interest margin slid from 1.22 percent to 1.13 percent at the end of September, it said.
However, profit grew 20 percent from a year earlier, as net fee income generated from its credit card operations gained 9.5 percent annually to NT$309 million and those from the corporate loans increased 31 percent to NT$399 million, company data showed.
Corporate loans rose 7.2 percent annually to NT$551 billion last quarter, with a focus on small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, while mortgage loans grew 13 percent to NT$315 billion, data showed.
By comparison, net fee income from its wealth management operations was flat, while consumer loans dropped 8.6 percent annually, the data showed.
Overall, the bank reported an annual drop of 2 percent in net profit for the first nine months to NT$9.8 billion, as it had not fully recovered from a plunge in investment gains in the first quarter.
Cushioned by the rising profit of Taishin Securities Co (台新證券), Taishin Financial’s net profit for the first three quarters slid 1 percent to NT$11.7 billion.
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