SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) yesterday said that its banking unit’s profit grew annually in the third quarter of this year, as rising loans with higher interest rates offset the negative impact of interest rate cuts and the COVID-19 pandemic.
At an investors’ conference in Taipei, the conglomerate said that Bank SinoPac’s (永豐銀行) net profit increased 25 percent annually in the third quarter to NT$2.85 billion (US$99.1 million).
In the first two quarters of this year, the banking unit’s net profit fell 15 percent from a year earlier due to less interest income and investment losses caused by market volatility.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Its net interest income rose 15 percent annually to NT$4.42 billion last quarter, as it focused on loans with higher margins, such as green loans, personal loans and lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).
The outstanding balance of Bank SinoPac’s lending totaled NT$1.15 trillion as of Sept. 30, up 1.2 percent from a quarter earlier and 8 percent from a year earlier, while outstanding SME loans rose 6.7 percent quarterly and 19 percent annually, company data showed.
Its net interest margin, a profitability gauge, rebounded to 1.01 percent as of the end of September, from 0.96 percent at the end of June and 1 percent at the end of March, while its loan-to-deposit ratio stood at 73.1 percent as of Sept. 30, slightly down from 74 percent a quarter earlier, the data showed.
Overall, Bank SinoPac’s cumulative net profit dropped 3.2 percent year-on-year to NT$7.63 billion for the first three quarters, its parent company said.
However, SinoPac Financial’s securities arm, SinoPac Securities Co (永豐金證券), saw its net profit jump 72 percent year-on-year to NT$1.01 billion last quarter, as its capital gains and net fee income increased.
SinoPac Securities reported fee income of NT$2.01 billion last quarter, up 60 percent year-on-year, as more people opened accounts to trade stocks, which boosted SinoPac Financial’s cumulative net fee income to NT$11.12 billion for the first three quarters, up 30 percent from a year earlier and a record high, the company said.
SinoPac Financial’s assets totaled NT$2.03 trillion as of the end of September, the first time it has surpassed NT$2 trillion, company president Stanley Chu (朱士廷) said.
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