CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) expects another year of record profit, as bullish global financial markets are boosting its wealth management business and the company’s overseas expansions are starting to pay off, CTBC Financial president James Chen (陳佳文) told investors yesterday.
The Taipei-based financial conglomerate earned NT$56.08 billion (US$1.79 billion) in net income last year, up 79.3 percent from 2022, with earnings per share of NT$2.82, its strongest performance for the second consecutive year.
The strong performance last year was mainly due to a lower comparison base in the previous year, higher capital gains from insurance business and more currency swap gains at its banking business, CTBC Financial said.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
The company plans to distribute a cash dividend that would be higher than the NT$1.25 per share it offered a year earlier, Chen said.
CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) last year earned NT$41.33 billion, up 11.3 percent from a year earlier, Chen said.
The bank generated NT$19.45 billion in profit from its overseas operations, recording year-on-year growth of more than 30 percent as consumer and institutional banking, as well as investment trading, showed relatively balanced improvement, he said.
“CTBC Bank should post record earnings this year, in the absence of major shocks,” he said, citing robust wealth management and timely gains from overseas branches.
Investment confidence has shown solid growth this year, thanks to robust capital markets at home and abroad, he said.
Regarding overseas operations, branches in Hong Kong and China accounted for 44 percent of profit, branches in Southeast Asia contributed 31 percent, and those in North America and Japan accounted for 12.8 percent, Chen said.
Investments aimed at global supply chain realignment are bearing fruit, with branches in Hong Kong and Singapore last year posting respective revenue of NT$7.3 billion and NT$2 billion, the best among Taiwanese banks in those areas, he said.
The Singaporean branch might significantly narrow its profitability gap with Hong Kong in three years due to its rising importance as a regional financial hub in Southeast Asia, he added.
As for CTBC’s life insurance subsidiary, Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), uncertainty linked to foreign currency exchanges remains a challenge, but should be less unpredictable compared with last year, he said.
Taiwan Life should post decent profit growth this year, despite foreign exchange volatility, he said.
As of December last year, CTBC Financial’s combined bad loan ratios was 0.52 percent, while coverage ratios were at about 309.6 percent, which demonstrates the resilience of the group’s assets, it said.
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