Banking, Taiwan - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 13:31 - 0 Comments

IFR Asia: Taiwan lenders venture offshore

IFR Asia, September 2009

Taiwanese banks are proving a useful source of liquidity for overseas borrowers. They have plenty of funds, but not much of an opportunity to get a return on them domestically since interest rates and spreads are low on New Taiwan dollar lending. Going overseas gets a better return on funds, without necessarily increasing the risk profile too far.

The best way of getting a handle on overseas lending by Taiwanese institutions is to take a look at the Central Bank of the Republic of China’s overview of offshore banking units, published periodically and most recently on September 8 (for July 31 data). This records data on 63 offshore banking units – 36 for domestic banks and 27 for foreign – who between them had US$28.911 billion of outstanding loans as of July 2009, 97% of it to overseas clients. US$19.136 billion of it is considered long-term, US$8.766 billion short term. Continue…

Popularity: 1% [?]