Housing and construction loans rose to their highest levels at the end of last month at NT$8.1 trillion (US$283.2 billion) and NT$2.83 trillion respectively, but their rate of increase slowed after the central bank tightened credit controls, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said on Thursday.
Housing loans rose 0.3 percent, or NT$25.3 billion, from NT$8.08 trillion at the end of January, easing from a monthly growth of 0.7 percent in January and marking the smallest increase since August last year, commission data showed.
Construction loans, an indicator of real-estate developers’ confidence in the sector, also grew at a slower pace last month with monthly rise of NT$18.1 billion, or 0.6 percent, compared with a monthly growth of NT$40.7 billion in January, the data showed.
Continuing rises in mortgage and constructions loans have prompted some people question whether the central bank’s selective credit controls have effectively curbed the overheating property market since they took effect on Dec. 8 last year.
“Mortgage and construction loans rising at a slower rate suggests that the tightened credit controls have affected lending momentum,” FSC Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) told a news conference in New Taipei City.
“However, it will take time before we see a drop in mortgage and construction loans, as some banks have contracts with real-estate developers with set lending goals. If the banks stick to the contracts, they will not refrain from offering new loans in the short term,” Lin said.
The central bank further tightened its credit controls on Friday last week, which might curb growth in mortgage and construction loans, the commission said.
The credit controls do not affect first-time home buyers, but they affect corporate and individual property investors, and highly leveraged borrowers by lowering the loan-to-value limit to 40 percent for all corporate buyers and 55 percent for multiple-home owners.
Some lenders, such as CTBC Bank (中信銀行), have told investors that the tightened credit measures would have a limited impact on its mortgage business, as the majority of their customers own one home.
Nonperforming housing loans totaled NT$9.8 billion at the end of last month, up from NT$9.7 billion a month earlier, while the nonperforming loan ratio remained flat at 0.12 percent, FSC data showed.
Nonperforming construction loans rose from NT$4.1 billion a month earlier to NT$4.2 billion at the end of last month, while the nonperforming loan ratio was flat at 0.15 percent, the data showed.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS