Former Financial Supervisory Commission vice chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) took the helm of the state-run Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) yesterday, promising to raise its return on assets from 0.7 percent to at least 1 percent.
The 60-year-old Chang, who is also acting chairperson of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (臺灣金控), announced that she was considering starting a land development firm to make better use of the bank’s idle real estate worth NT$50 billion (US$1.64 billion).
“I hope that under my leadership, Bank of Taiwan, the nation’s largest by assets, will continue to flourish,” Chang said at a ceremony marking her first day on the job.
The 100 percent government-owed lender has assets valued at NT$3.3 trillion and 169 domestic outlets and eight foreign ones.
Chang said the Bank of Taiwan has emerged from the US subprime mortgage crisis unscathed as evidenced by its before-tax profit of NT$12 billion last year, outperforming its rivals.
Bank president Peter Lo (羅澤成) said the bank posted a NT$5.3 billion profit in the first half of this year, or 58 percent of the NT$9 billion profit projected for the entire year.
Lo said the proposed real estate firm would also be involved in real estate development and management.
To reverse the bearish stock market, the government has instructed Taiwan Holdings to manage its properties better. Chang said the real estate developer is likely to be set up under Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), another subsidiary of the holdings company.
She said she hoped the legislature would soon greenlight the holdings company’s organic law and its budget so that it could boost its operations.
The Cabinet sent the organic bill to the legislature on June 26 for approval, nearly six months after launching the holdings company that combines the Bank of Taiwan , an insurance company, the Land Bank of Taiwan (士地銀行) and Bank Taiwan Securities.
If passed into law, the bill will be retroactive to Jan. 1 this year.
Chang said she had no timetable for the planned merger with the Land Bank, which has NT$1.88 trillion in assets and 141 outlets in Taiwan and overseas.
The merger would give Taiwan Holdings 18.58 percent control of the nation’s capital market.
Chang plans to expand the holding company’s operations to China once Chinese authorities lift legal restrictions.
“Hopefully, the two sides can soon remove legal barriers through negotiation,” she said.
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