Taishin Financial targets 15% more clients

Lender eyes expanding its loan business by 10% and emerging as leader in mobile banking services.

Taishin Financial Holding Co. on Wednesday vowed 15 percent growth in the number of new clients to 500,000 this year along with a 5 percent to 10 percent growth from loan businesses.

Taishin Financial, the nation’s fifth-largest financial service provider by assets, on Wednesday further heralded its improved bank profitability after its ratio of pre-tax income versus total assets jumped to the second-highest among 13 of its peers in the first quarter, up from 12th place in 2006, company chief operating officer Greg Gibb told an investors’ conference on Wednesday.

“As a result of restructuring efforts in the past two to three years, we’ve begun to see a stable profitability,” he said, adding that Taishin Financial also aims to become a leader in providing mobile banking services to smartphone users.

Among its peers, the company further reported the third-¬highest pre-tax earning per share of NT$0.52 (US$0.02) as of last month, next to Fubon Financial Holding Co’s NT$0.88 (US$0.03) per share and Chinatrust Financial Holding Co’s NT$0.54 (US$0.02) per share. In the first quarter, the company reported a rosy 195 percent year-on-year growth to NT$2.3 billion (US$ 72.59 million) in net profit, or NT$0.36 (US$ 0.01) per share, on lowered funding costs and sustained improvements in both net interest incomes and fee incomes.

Looking ahead, an analyst with Concord Securities Co, who requested anonymity, said he believes Taishin Financial should be able to continue its earning growth.

View the full story in Taipei Times.