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"There are many zombie banks in Taiwan. Smaller institutions that don’t have a big name but for which life goes on under the safety of a government guarantee" Daniel Tsai, Fubon Financial Holding |
At a forum where the discussions are prone to excessive optimism, pandering to China and vagueness, talking to Daniel Tsai is refreshing. The 52-year-old chairman of Fubon Financial Holding Co, one of Taiwan’s top financial services conglomerates, meets Euromoney on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in China and answers questions with such directness that Victor Kung, president of the group and also present in the room, steps in frequently to offer mollifying remarks or reword his boss’s comments in slightly less inflammatory language. When asked, for example, if there is any hope for Taiwan’s troubled banks to improve their profitability, Tsai replies: "I see no hope to get profits up, except through intensive consolidation...."
Kung interrupts: "You mean that things are as bad as they can be now, there’s no hope to get profits back to their former levels without consolidation."
"Yes," Tsai continues, "long term there are simply too many banks."