The nation’s 14 listed financial holding companies last month reported a collective profit of NT$57.78 billion (US$1.76 billion), up 7.2 percent from a year earlier, although the Lunar New Year holiday reduced the number of business days.
The improvement reflected stable profit growth on the part of local financial institutions and most of them are expected to fare well this year, despite trade tensions between the US and the rest of the world.
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) retained its top position, with net income of NT$15.21 billion, or earnings per share of NT$1.11, followed by Cathay Financial Holding Co’s (國泰金控) NT$14.49 billion, or NT$0.99 per share.
Photo courtesy of Fubon Financial Holding Co
Fubon Financial’s profit expanded 8 percent year-on-year, bolstered by NT$3.89 billion in contributions from Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), the conglomerate said in a statement.
Loan and deposit growth remained strong at 9 percent and 11 percent respectively, driving an 11 percent gain in net interest income, it said, adding that wealth management gathered traction, boosting fee income by 14 percent.
Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) generated NT$730 million in net income, soaring 33 percent from a year earlier, aided by stable and healthy insurance operation and investment gains, it said.
Cathay Financial’s profit last month showed the fastest uptick of 54 percent from a year earlier, as its flagship unit, Cathay Life Insurance (國泰人壽), posted a net profit of NT$9.43 billion, up more than twofold from a year earlier, the group said.
In addition, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) delivered strong earnings of NT$4.25 billion, up 7.1 percent year-on-year, on the back of strong loan demand and lower foreign-currency funding costs, as well as better interest income and robust wealth management business, including insurance policies and mutual funds, it said.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) placed third, with net income of NT$6.83 billion, while KGI Financial Holding Co (凱基金控) overtook state-run Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) to rank fourth with NT$3.66 billion of net income versus Mega Financial’s NT$3.22 billion.
Five conglomerates — SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控), KGI Financial, E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) and Hua Nan Financial Co (華南金控) delivered record results for last month, their data showed.
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) was the only one in the red, posting losses of NT$1.88 billion, dragged by its main subsidiary Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), the company said in a statement.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
BUBBLE? Only a handful of companies are seeing rapid revenue growth and higher valuations, and it is not enough to call the AI trend a transformation, an analyst said Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a more challenging phase next year as companies move beyond experimentation and begin demanding clear financial returns from a technology that has delivered big gains to only a small group of early adopters, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said yesterday. Most organizations have been able to justify AI investments through cost recovery or modest efficiency gains, but few have achieved meaningful revenue growth or long-term competitive advantage, the consultancy said in its 2026 AI Business Predictions report. This growing performance gap is forcing executives to reconsider how AI is deployed across their organizations, it said. “Many companies
RSS