Banks were the only segment in the local financial sector that reported growth in pretax profit from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, thanks to the central bank’s rate hikes, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday.
Banks in Taiwan reported a combined pretax profit of NT$291.32 billion (US$9.2 billion) in the first eight months of the year, up 7.1 percent annually, as rate hikes drove up interest income, commission data showed.
Taiwanese banks’ pretax profit grew 9.3 percent from a year earlier to NT$267.3 billion in the eight months, the highest for the period on record, while credit co-operatives’ pretax profit rose 12.6 percent to NT$2.64 billion, commission data showed.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
However, foreign banks’ local units saw pretax profit drop 11 percent to NT$9.88 billion, as funding costs increased amid widening interest spreads between the US and Taiwan, the commission said.
Securities companies’ combined pretax profit decreased 59.19 percent to NT$35.62 billion in the first eight months, as fee income was dented by declining turnover in the local stock markets, the data showed.
Meanwhile, futures companies’ pretax profit dropped 0.7 percent to NT$3.43 billion, and investment trust firms’ pretax profit fell 9.76 percent to NT$9.39 billion, as investors became conservative about investments, the commission said.
Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Kao Ching-ping (高晶萍) said the turnover in local stock markets shrank by NT$29.76 trillion in the first eight months after the TAIEX fell by 3,123.4 points during the period, causing the brokerage and proprietary trading businesses to see their income reduce by NT$37.86 billion and NT$30.67 billion respectively.
As for the investment trust firms, their asset management business declined to NT$4.76 trillion over the eight months, compared with NT$4.84 trillion in the same period last year, which affected fund managers’ fee income, Kao said.
Life insurance companies’ combined pretax profit dropped 22 percent to NT$264.3 billion, as investment income plunged amid market routs and rate hikes worldwide, while non-life insurance companies reported combined net losses of NT$76.5 billion due to sizable payments to COVID-19 insurance policyholders, the data showed.
Overall, financial companies in Taiwan reported a combined pretax profit decline of 27.7 percent year-on-year to NT$527.56 billion in the first eight months, the commission said.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS