The combined pretax profit of the nation’s financial companies plunged 32 percent annually to NT$558.5 billion (US$18.21 billion) in the first 10 months of this year, as global market routs hit insurance companies and securities brokerages, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed yesterday.
Life insurance companies reported a combined pretax profit of NT$291.4 billion through October, down 22.4 percent from a year earlier, as net investment gains contracted 5.5 percent, commission data showed.
Non-life insurers posted a combined loss of NT$133.8 billion in the first 10 months due to COVID-19 insurance policy claims of NT$11.3 billion, compared with a pretax profit of NT$21.4 billion in the same period last year, the data showed.
Photo courtesy of CTBC Financial Holding Co via CNA
Insurers registered a combined pretax profit of NT$157.6 billion, down 60 percent annually, the data showed.
Local securities companies’ pretax profit reported an annual retreat of 55 percent in combined pretax profit to NT$53 billion on falling fee revenue, the commission said.
The banking sector is the sole sector in the black, as banks’ combined profit grew 11 percent to NT$347 billion thanks to the central bank’s rate hikes and a growth in loans, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Phil Tong (童政彰) said.
Banks’ net interest income expanded 16.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$500 billion, despite single-digit percentage decreases in fee income and investment gains, Tong said.
While Taiwan’s financial companies registered a record pretax profit of NT$936.6 billion last year, they are expected to post an annual decline in profit this year in light of a high comparison base, along with insurance losses and volatile global markets, the commission said.
Several financial holding companies earlier said that they are planning to use their retained earnings to next year distribute cash dividends in spite of sluggish earnings growth this year.
The companies said their payout plans are still subject to the commission’s approval.
In principle, the commission would only allow companies with solid capital adequacy to distribute cash dividends next year, FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee.
How the companies would distribute their cash dividends and what sources they would use for the payouts are other factors, he said.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS