Taiwan's Taipei Bank posted pre-tax profits of NT$376 million (US$11.8 million) in August, down 14% from the same month a year earlier, due to large bad loan provisions, a bank executive told Bridge News yesterday. The bank booked NT$130 million in bad loan provisions in August.
"Without such large provisions, our pre-tax profitability in the period was in fact better than a year earlier," said the executive.
The executive said the bank will continue its effort to set aside bad loan provisions in order to improve its financial soundness.
"We will see how good the operational results will be in the future. If necessary, reducing the overdue loans will remain our priority," said the executive.
At the end of July, the bank's overdue loan ratio stood at 2.88. Although it is more moderate in comparison with an averaged overdue loan ratio of 5.01 percent among local banks at the end of June, the executive said the bank expected to further lower its overdue loan ratio.
"We hope to see a substantial drop in our overdue loan ratio in the next few months as the economy is recovering. Our aim is to cut the ratio to 2.33 percent by the end of this year," said the executive.
Meanwhile, he said the bank has formulated a new forecast for its pre-tax profits of NT$5.296 billion for fiscal 2000, which will run from July 1999 to December 2000. The forecast earnings per share for the fiscal year is NT$2.28.
According to a change introduced by the government, the current fiscal year for government and state-run firms will be extended to 18 months through December 2000. After that, fiscal years will run from January to December.
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