Taiwan

It has lost money for two straight months this year, yet Bank of Taiwan plans to start making money by increasing loans at higher interest rates to clients "prone to credit risk". It failed in America, but perhaps Taiwan is different?

Q. The Taiwanese banking sector has experienced huge problems in its NII and profit margins in the past, so how will banks like Chinatrust consolidate their positions in the future?The Taiwanese banking sector has experienced squeezed NII and profit margins during the past 5 to 10 years due to fierce domestic competition, over-liquidity and major industry turmoil including the corporate crisis of 2001 and the cash card and credit card crisis of 2005/06. The performances of Taiwanese banks have been volatile during this period with little growth in scale. Banking consolidations received strong industry and social resistance during the past few years and after the washouts of the two financial turmoils, second-tier private banks with low scale and profitability were gradually merged by global financial institutions such as Citi, ABN Amro, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank during 2007. We expect the financial industry to consolidate its position even further for better development and performance.