Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwan’s financial firms have posted record first-quarter pretax profits, up 37.09 percent from a year earlier, as the booming local stock market boosted investment returns, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said. Combined pretax profits of the local banking, insurance and securities industries reached NT$370.997 billion (US$11.81 billion) in the January-to-March period, smashing the previous first-quarter record of NT$317.63 billion from 2021, data released on Sunday by Taiwan’s top financial regulator showed. The banking industry posted NT$195.24 billion in pretax profit in the first quarter, up 28.5 percent from a year earlier, the FSC said.
Signage at the Financial Supervisory Commission in New Taipei City is pictured on April 30.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
The banking industry includes domestic banks, foreign and Chinese banks operating in Taiwan, credit cooperatives, and savings and exchange agencies. Domestic banks in the first quarter registered a 20.5 percent increase in pretax profits to NT$174.28 billion, the highest for the same period, FSC data showed.
Banks benefited from an increase in interest income, fee income and investment returns, FSC Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Chang Chia-kui (張嘉魁) said. A domestic banking industry source said that the capital market performed well early this year, as optimism surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) helped offset concerns over the US-Iran conflict, and increase income from wealth management. Strong global demand for AI prompted semiconductor and other tech suppliers to seek funding for expansion, boosting banks’ corporate lending business, the source added. In the insurance industry, pretax profits rose 16 percent from a year earlier to NT$108.2 billion in the first quarter, the data showed. Pretax profits for life insurers, which make up the bulk of the industry, rose 13.5 percent to NT$96.4 billion, while nonlife insurers saw a 43.9 percent rise to NT$11.8 billion. With the TAIEX repeatedly setting closing highs during the first quarter, pretax profits in the securities industry surged 164 percent from a year earlier to NT$67.56 billion — also a record for the same period — amid increased market turnover, the FSC said. The rise in stock turnover particularly benefited brokerages, with their pretax profits jumping 225 percent to NT$54.23 billion, FSC Securities and Futures Bureau Secretary-General Wang Hsiu-ling (王秀玲) said. Meanwhile, investment trust firms’ net profits increased 49.94 percent to NT$9.99 billion on higher fee income due to growth in asset management scale, Wang said.