Overseas branches of Taiwanese banks see revenue grow
Chinatrust Commercial Bank employees gather on the steps of their Xinyi headquarters to say goodbye to the building, as they are being relocated to Nangang, May 15. (File photo/Deng Bo-jen)
Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission said on May 25 that the total revenue for Taiwanese banks’ offshore banking units has exceeded US$4.2 billion.
According to the report the first three months of the year saw revenue at US$1.2 billion, which was 60% more than the same figure for the same period in 2013.
FSC said that Taiwanese banks have a total of 309 offshore banking units, offices, or branches in different countries, while 223 of them are located in the Asia-Pacific region and most of them are in Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and Cambodia. Another 73 of these 309 branches are located in North America while 63 of them are in the United States.
Chinatrust Commercial Bank, for example, owns 68 branches and offices overseas. The bank said that its annual revenues from its overseas branches continued to increase. An anonymous source from the bank said that most of its business in the Hong Kong branch, for example, relies on providing services to Taiwanese businesspeople or firms in Hong Kong and China.
The newspaper also cited a source who said that operating an overseas branch is risky because it requires more time, money and talent to be competitive in another country.
