CTBC Bank
CTBC Bank, Taiwan’s largest private sector bank, won this year’s awards for best domestic bank and for best corporate and investment bank, because of its resilience and innovation in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as for its global ambitions.
With James Chen, president, at the helm, CTBC has maintained a leading position in Taiwan’s crowded banking industry, where 40 or so institutions serve a population of 23.8 million.
The bank is pursuing digitalization in all aspects of its business, which included launching ‘CTBC Brain’ to help process applications for the government’s labour relief loans. The technology automatically separates relief loan applications from general loan applications.
That rollout proved useful, as CTBC processed 280,000 applications over six weeks last year and distributed around one quarter of the government’s labour relief loan programme – the largest portion handled by any individual bank in Taiwan.
CTBC itself did not escape the impact of Covid-19: its pre-tax profit for 2020 fell 16% year on year to NT$32.3