Local financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, securities and futures brokerages, and investment trusts, last year saw aggregate profits soar to their second-highest in history, despite headwinds faced by life insurers in the final two months of the year, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
Their combined pretax profit totaled NT$703.6 billion (US$22.58 billion), up 46.71 percent from NT$479.6 billion a year earlier, the commission’s data showed.
Financial institutions posted record profits of NT$935.55 billion in 2021, the data showed.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Banks were the largest contributor to last year’s profit growth, reporting record pretax profits of NT$505.7 billion, up 17.03 percent from NT$432.1 billion in 2022, thanks to rising currency swap income, a capital market recovery, and double-digit percentage growth in fee income for wealth management and credit card businesses, the commission said.
Securities and futures brokerages and investment trusts followed with a combined pretax profit of NT$99.8 billion, a 50.98 percent increase from NT$66.1 billion the previous year, buoyed by a stock market boom, it said.
Insurance companies posted a lower-than-expected pretax profit of NT$98.1 billion for last year, as life insurers sustained foreign-exchange losses amid the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar in the November-to-December period, it said.
However, insurance companies’ bottom line last year improved greatly from the previous year, when they registered a combined loss of NT$18.6 billion, it said.
FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) said he is optimistic about the sector’s prospects this year.
While the financial industry is resilient, companies should be cautious about market, credit and liquidity risks, as well as challenges from false information and corporate governance, he told a news conference in New Taipei City.
The commission, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, hopes financial institutions would further promote innovation and diversification in financial products without sacrificing financial stability, Huang said.
The FSC will assist the industry in upgrading and moving toward net zero carbon emissions and sustainable development, he added.
To improve odd-lot trading opportunities and efficiency on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and the over-the-counter Taipei Exchange, the commission plans to shorten the matching interval of intraday odd-lot trading from one minute to five seconds by the end of this year, Securities and Futures Bureau Director-General Sam Chang (張振山) told the news conference.
The intraday odd-lot trading system was first implemented in October 2020 to attract small-capital investors.
The commission has requested that the TWSE and the Taipei Exchange revise odd-lot trading regulations and promote activities among securities firms and investors to achieve inclusive finance, Chang said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS