Interest rates for new loans at the nation’s five major state-run banks stood at 1.224 percent last month, down 0.031 percentage points from August, as pricing competition sharpened, the central bank said on Friday.
The monetary policymaker compared the lending rates of Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), and found that smaller lenders tend to take cues from state-run peers when setting their own rates.
The central bank attributed the downturn to an increase in fresh lending to government agencies and large corporations, which have better credit profiles and could secure cheaper loans.
The decrease was also aided by lenders who were seeking to digest idle cash and vied for customers.
Meanwhile, interest rates for new mortgages dropped by 0.003 percentage points to 1.346 percent last month, the lowest in history, as lenders offered preferential terms to woo quality customers and whole-batch mortgage cases, the central bank said.
Housing transactions took a downturn in previous months following a local COVID-19 outbreak that began in May, but have recovered momentum in the past few weeks, the central bank said, adding that new mortgages increased by NT$12.05 billion (US$431.87 million) from the previous month to NT$55.55 billion last month.
The housing price index set by Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) showed that prices in Taipei gained 5.4 percent this year and the advance hit 9.3 percent in New Taipei City.
Separately, the Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday approved E.Sun Commercial Bank’s (玉山銀行) application to open an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
E.Sun has a branch in Vietnam’s Dong Nai Province and operates a representative office in Hanoi. The bank expects the new Ho Chi Minh City office to help expand its presence in Southeast Asia.
State-run Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行) last month secured the Vietnamese government’s approval to open an office in the northern city of Haiphong, six years after Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) won a permission to open a branch in Ho Chi Minh City in 2015.
The commission said that 14 Taiwanese banks have set up representative offices and branches in Vietnam.
Their combined pretax profits in the first six months of the year totaled NT$939 million, down 38.5 percent from a year earlier, due to slowing lending growth amid economic uncertainty, it said.
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