E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) yesterday said it aims to expand into China, Singapore and Vietnam next year to capitalize on the region’s growing demand for corporate banking and wealth management services.
“Overseas expansion in China, Singapore and Vietnam sits on top of the company’s agenda next year,” E.Sun Financial president Joseph Huang (黃男州) said on the sidelines of a public function.
The bank-centric financial service provider plans to establish a banking branch in Dongguan, China, late this year or early next year once it receives regulatory approval form China, Huang said.
Huang said E.Sun Financial intends to provide its first Chinese branch with 700 million yuan (US$110 million) in capital, which is much higher than the 200 million yuan previously allowed to Taiwanese firms now that the Financial Supervisory Commission has increased the investment ceiling.
E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), the group’s main source of earnings, had its plan to establish a branch in Sinapore approved by the commission on Tuesday and Huang said the bank hopes to enter the Singaporean market toward the end of the second quarter next year.
“We intend to focus on corporate banking, providing syndicated loans and wealth management services, in line with the group’s mid and long-term development plans in Asia,” Huang said.
E.Sun Bank is also looking to upgrade its representative office in Vietnam into a full branch to take advantage of the country’s fast-growing need for banking services, Huang said.
To back the overseas expansions, the medium-sized financial conglomerate last month raised NT$7.5 billion (US$250 million), which will be used to strengthen its overall capital to NT$45.75 billion, from the current NT$38.03 billion, Huang said.
The group’s capital will grow to NT$50 billion next year or in 2013 to meet tightening capital requirements as the overseas expansions unfold, Huang added.
E.Sun Financial aims to boost its core capital ratio to 9 percent toward the year end and its capital adequacy ratio at 12 percent, Huang said.
“We’re satisfied at the bank’s asset health, with the bad loan ratio standing at 0.19 percent and the coverage ratio at 312 percent as of September,” he said.
However, the lender would set aside more loan loss reserves to cooperate with regulators if they deem it necessary as global economic uncertainties increase, Huang said.
The commission has floated the idea of raising the minimum required reserves to 1 percent of total lending, from the present 0.5 percent, a move that might weaken banks’ earnings this year, and E.Sun Bank is expected to be one of the hardest hit given its credit profile.
The group reported a net profit of NT$4.29 billion during the January-to-September period, rising 9.33 percent from the same period a year ago, company data showed.
This translated to earnings per share of NT$1.05, up from NT$1.04 last year, as the group was less affected by the global market volatility than other domestic lenders.
Shares in E.Sun Financial shed 1.05 percent to NT$14.20 at the close of local trading yesterday.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS