Following data released this week showing that the nation's most troubled banks were getting worse, an industry watcher yesterday urged the government to take action quickly so that they do not become an even greater burden on taxpayers.
"They have become vampire banks, sucking the blood from the government's [coffers]," said Chen Chung-hsing (陳松興), president and CEO of Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), the local arm of Standard & Poor's.
The latest figures from the central bank, released on Wednesday, show that the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio at the end of December at six of the nation's 10 worst-performing banks had risen by between 3 and 10 percentage points from the same period last year.
Chen urged the legislature to hasten the approval of the government's NT$908.6 billion Financial Restructuring Fund (
"The longer the plan is delayed, the more losses the taxpayer will have to cover," Chen said.
At the worst financial institutions, the Ministry of Finance's efforts to reduce bad loans appear to have failed.
Banks where the NPL ratio rose during the past two years include Chung Shing Commercial Bank (中興銀行), from 57.34 percent to 64.53 percent; Kaohsiung Business Bank (高雄企銀), from 33.86 percent to 43.50 percent, and Hualien Business Bank (花蓮企銀), from 27.69 percent to 27.87 percent.
The 10 most-troubled banks had an average NPL ratio of 25.3 percent, up from 24.4 percent in 2001. The slow economic recovery, however, continues to strain banks' ability to generate earnings and deal with their bad loans.
Public funding will be needed to support bank lending and help them alleviate their financial problems, Paul Grela, director of Fitch Ratings' financial institutions in Asia, said yesterday.
After writing off a record NT$410 billion in bad loans, banks reported an average 8.85 percent NPL ratio last year. According to Fitch, the figure may actually be between 12 percent and 15 percent, while Chen estimates the figure to be between 10 percent and 12 percent.
Opposition parties have been accused of stalling the passage of measures to deal with the NPL problem in an attempt to undermine President Chen Shui-bian's (
But PFP Legislator Norman Yin (
Rising defaults on consumer debt, which accounts for 47 percent of all bad loans, may further deteriorate the nation's bad-loan problem this year, Yin said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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