TAIPEI: The nation’s 39 banks reported a 5.7 percent annual decline in their combined pre-tax profit in the first six months of the year, which the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) attributed to a high base of comparison from last year.
In the first half, pre-tax profit for the banking sector totaled NT$169.1 billion (US$5.32 billion), down NT$10.3 billion from NT$179.4 billion in the same period last year, according to the latest tallies released by the commission yesterday.
“Net income in the first half would have exceeded last year’s numbers by NT$4.5 billion, if the one-time NT$14.8 billion purchase gain booked by CTBC Financial Holding Co last year from its acquisition of Tokyo Star Bank was excluded,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Jean Chiu said.
FSC Chairman William Tseng previously said that he believed that “spring,” meaning signs of recovery, had arrived for the financial sector.
When asked by reporters yesterday whether he stood by the remark, Tseng said: “There are many definitions of spring,” without elaborating.
The banking sector’s domestic operations contributed 64.3 percent, or NT$108.7 billion, of combined profit in the first half, the commission’s data showed.
However, bank branches abroad posted first-half profit that receded by 4.9 percent year-on-year to NT$15.9 billion, with profit in June alone falling by 57.9 percent to NT$1.8 billion, data showed.
Chinese branches contributed earnings of NT$2.1 billion in the first half, up 27 percent year-on-year, while offshore banking units’ profit receded by 8.1 percent year-on-year to NT$42.3 billion, data showed.
Chiu said that the decline in earnings by overseas branches was caused by a NT$4 billion windfall booked by Bank SinoPac last year, when the company liquidated its assets in Hong Kong.
