A bancassurance company formed by a leading local mortgage lender and a Paris-based insurance company announced yesterday it would start operations at its more than 300 branches throughout the nation.
BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽), established by the Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB, 合作金庫) and BNP Paribas Assurance, set a one-year premium objective of NT$50 billion (US$1.59 billion) within three years.
“It is estimated that the company will rank among the top 10 insurers in Taiwan following its operations this year and will break even within three years,” chairman Fan Yang-jen (范揚禎) told a media briefing.
TOP FIVE
Leveraging on BNP Paribas Assurance’s leadership in global mortgage insurance as well as TCB’s position in the local mortgage loan business, Fan said the new venture was striving to become one of the top five bancassurance companies in Taiwan.
Fan said that with TCB’s mortgage loan balance of NT$560 billion and more than NT$100 billion in loans made to borrowers each year, the new insurance entity’s penetration rate was expected to reach 30 percent in the first year of operation.
The establishment of BNP Paribas TCB Life marked the latest joint venture between a local bank and a foreign insurance company, despite the fact that five foreign insurance firms have exited the Taiwanese market since the financial downturn began in 2008.
Also speaking at the press conference, TCB chairman Liu Deng-cheng (劉燈城) said cooperation between the two companies showed that “most foreign insurance companies remain upbeat about the potential of the Taiwanese insurance sector.”
PRIORITIES
The new life insurer said in a statement that in the initial stage of operations it would focus on mortgage insurance products as one of its core businesses.
The company said that with changes in consumer behavior, banks had become a mainstream sales channel for insurance products.
More than 67 percent of total premiums of NT$167 billion in January and February came from bancassurance, it said.
Separately, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) yesterday rebranded its 22 local outlets, completing its acquisition of The Royal Bank of Scotland’s Taiwan business and ABN AMRO’s private banking business here.
Targeting affluent Taiwanese and family clients, ANZ and its 1,400 staff will develop a balanced business in Taiwan, CEO for the Asia Pacific, Europe and America Alex Thursby said.
EXPANSION
Thursby said the bank also intended to open 16 new outlets in Taiwan, which it says is the fourth-largest banking market in Asia, within two years.
The bank, however, has no immediate plans for merger-and-acquisition opportunities as its priority is to consolidate and seek organic growth, he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
BIG INVESTMENT: Hon Hai is building the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said The construction of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) massive artificial intelligence (AI) server plant near Guadalajara, Mexico, would be completed in a year despite the threat of new tariffs from US President Donald Trump, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is investing about US$900 million in what would become the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art GB200 AI chips, Lemus said. The project consists of two phases: the expansion of an existing Hon Hai facility in the municipality of El Salto, and the construction of a
RSS