Companies in the financial sector reported mixed performance in the first 11 months of last year, with banks reporting an 8.9 percent annual decline in combined profit to NT$351.04 billion (US$12.31 billion) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while securities brokerages and insurance firms saw double-digit percentage growth in earnings, data released on Tuesday by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) showed.
The commission attributed the decline in banks’ profits to lower investment gains, and to higher provisions that they had to set aside after the pandemic hit borrowers and led to higher bad loans at their overseas branches.
Cuts in central banks’ interests rates around the world also reduced interest income, the commission said.
By contrast, securities firms, futures companies and securities investment trust companies saw their aggregate profit advance 36.83 percent annually to NT$71.26 billion in the 11-month period, data showed.
That came as securities companies gained higher handling fees due to rising stock transactions, as the TAIEX kept moving higher and more retail investors entered the local bourse, the commission said.
Insurance firms also benefited from the bull market, as many of them realized capital gains, it said.
Among insurance firms, life insurers saw their combined profit grow 23.1 percent to NT$208.1 billion during the period, while their property peers reported a 4 percent increase in profit to NT$15.9 billion, data showed.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day