The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank’s (台北富邦商業銀行) application to set up a Japanese branch.
This follows its approval in February of Taiwan Cooperative Bank’s (合庫銀行) application to establish a branch in the East Asian nation.
In a statement posted on its Web site, the commission said it had green lighted Taipei Fubon Bank’s application to seek approval from financial authorities in Japan to open a branch in Tokyo in light of the Japanese market’s growth prospects and the bank’s overseas deployment needs.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
“Taipei Fubon Bank considers Japan as one of the world’s major economies and it has close bilateral trade exchanges with Taiwan,” the commission said in the statement. “The bank plans to establish a Tokyo branch to extend its financial services to Japan and gradually complete building up its overseas network.”
As of the end of last year, the bank — a subsidiary of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) — had eight overseas units in Vietnam, Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia. They include one subsidiary, five branches and two representative offices, data from the bank showed.
Apart from opening a branch in Tokyo, the bank also plans to establish a branch in Mumbai, India, and a representative office in Seoul to expand its overseas operations and create multiple profit sources, it said in a separate statement.
Fubon Financial leads its local peers as the most profitable financial institution in Taiwan, posting a net profit of NT$59.43 billion (US$1.82 billion) in the first five months of this year, or earnings per share of NT$4.57.
Taipei Fubon Bank also posted a record-high net profit of NT$13.24 billion in the first five months, up 26 percent year-on-year, company data showed.
The bank is to become the latest to tap the Japanese market to help Taiwanese businesses and local Japanese enterprises access financing opportunities, amid growing bilateral trade exchanges and the regionalization trend of global supply chains.
It also comes as a shift in banks’ appetite for the Japanese market following Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) launch of new wafer fabs in Kumamoto Prefecture early this year.
“TSMC has launched a new fab in Kumamoto and is driving dozens of its supply-chain firms to set up factories in Japan, which is conducive to expanding the base of Taiwanese customers there,” the bank said in the statement.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker is planning to build a second fab near the first one, with operations scheduled to begin by the end of 2027.
“Japan looks to offer great investment opportunities and the corresponding financial prospects are promising,” the bank added.
So far, eight Taiwanese banks operate a total of 10 branches and one subsidiary in Japan, most of which are in Tokyo while the others are in Osaka and Fukuoka, the commission said.
The eight are Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一商業銀行), Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化商業銀行), Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商業銀行), Taiwan Business Bank (臺灣中小企業銀行), E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山商業銀行), Taishin International Commercial Bank (台新國際商業銀行) and CTBC Bank (中國信託商業銀行).
The combined pre-tax profit of Taiwanese banks’ Japanese units totaled NT$990 million in the first quarter of this year, up 54.4 percent from NT$640 million in the same period last year, data released by the commission in May showed.
Bilateral trade between Taiwan and Japan totaled US$75.8 billion last year, with Taiwan being Japan’s fourth-largest trading partner and Japan being Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner and the fourth-largest source of foreign investment, government data showed.
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