State-run Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (合庫金控) is to sit out the competition among local peers for Web-only bank licenses and focus on business opportunities linked to the nation’s graying population, a company executive said.
“We have no intention of competing for the two Internet-only bank licenses, because such operations are different from the online banking services offered by conventional lenders,” Taiwan Cooperative Financial president Chen Mei-tsu (陳美足) told an investors’ conference on Thursday.
The Financial Supervisory Commission has announced plans to issue two licenses for Web-only banks in Taiwan, which must allow non-banking enterprises to own a controlling stake, in line with international trends.
State-run Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Taiwan Business Bank (台企銀) have said they are interested in setting up new ventures in partnership with domestic telecoms.
By contrast, Chen said the holding, which focuses on its banking business, prefers a stable and conservative approach to improve its earnings ability.
The conglomerate’s main subsidiary, Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行), is to open “digital branches” and expand online banking services to meet client’s needs, Chen said.
The lender, which operates 270 outlets nationwide, ranks first in terms of reverse mortgage operations, which totaled NT$6.4 billion (US$208 million) in the first half of the year, Chen said.
Reverse mortgage operations, part of the government’s response to Taiwan’s fast-growing aging population, help elderly home owners maintain financial independence by mortgaging their property.
The lender is to focus on such activities by providing suchclients with one-stop trust services that cover leasing and property rights, long-term care, prepayment of services and other solutions, Chen said.
Judging by the loans it extended in the first half, the bank also outperformed peers in supporting the government’s New Southbound Policy, she said.
The cautious strategy paid off, as Taiwan Cooperative Financial posted NT$8.09 billion in net income in the first six months of the year, an 8.45 percent increase from the same period last year, Chen said.
Overseas operations contributed 30.26 percent of the company’s total earnings, as lending in Southeast Asia generated higher yields, Taiwan Cooperative Financial said.
Later this year, Taiwan Cooperative Bank is to add two branches in Cambodia, where it already has five offices, Chen said.
The lender is pressing ahead with portfolio adjustments by overweighting assets that generate better yields and underweighting low-yield assets, Chen said.
The bank’s non-performing loan ratio dropped to 0.35 percent by the end of June, down 6 basis points from the end of the second half of last year, company data showed.
‘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
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
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary