O-Bank Co Ltd (王道商業銀行), the nation’s first online bank, is pursuing double-digit percentage growth in core businesses this year on top of last year’s record earnings, undeterred by lingering economic uncertainty, top-ranking officials said yesterday.
O-Bank is optimistic about fee and interest income growth, as well as wealth management and foreign-exchange gains, driven by a strategy focusing on lending with affiliates of major Taiwanese corporations, bank president Elton Lee (李芳遠) said.
Conducting business with corporate clients generates higher margin despite a lack of financial protection from their parent companies, Lee said.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
O-Bank considers risk controls essential, as evidenced by its improving return on equity to 13.59 percent and return on assets to 1.5 percent last year, he said.
The “bad loan” ratio stood at a low 0.35 percent, and non-performing loan coverage ratios reached 431.51 percent, affirming healthy asset quality, Lee said.
Pre-tax profit in the first two months of this year totaled NT$950 million (US$30.99 million), rising 10.6 percent from the same period last year and ahead of expectations, Lee said.
The figures showed earnings per share rising 18.75 percent year-on-year to NT$0.19, indicating that the bank “stayed on the right track” and grew more profitable three years after new leadership, said O-Bank chairwoman Tina Lo (駱怡君), who assumed her position in 2020.
The lender last year achieved record profit of NT$5.8 billion, supported by improving commercial and retail banking, along with a merger of its IBT International Leasing Corp (台駿租賃) with Jih Sun International Leasing & Finance Co (日盛台駿租賃), Lo said.
O-Bank has a 44.5 percent stake in Jih Sun and would distribute profit proportionately, she said.
When not including the merger benefit, net income at O-Bank last year would have increased 9 percent to NT$2 billion, better than transforming to a commercial bank, Lo said.
The bank aims to add more than 100 employees to its payroll this year to meet expansion needs at its corporate and retail banking businesses, she said.
O-Bank plans to distribute cash dividend this year similar to last year's level at NT$0.3 per share but the board has not reached a decision on the matter yet, Lo said. Like most other peers, O-Bank lost NT$2.8 billion last year due to the global financial tumult.
Additionally, the online banking environment this year appears to be challenging, as stakeholders must increase their economic scale before seeking profit, Lee said.
Taiwan’s central bank is likely to slow or halt monetary tightening next week to allow economic growth, Lee said.
Other policy tools to fight inflation exist, and rate hikes should be the last resort, he added.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS