First Financial Holding Co Ltd

TWSE:2892

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Hi, I'm K. C. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to join us for First Financial Holding 2022 Full Year Earnings Results. As usual, we will start with our presentation, including 2022 performance summary, financial highlights and operating results. After the presentation, we'll invite Ms. Annie Lee, our IR Head and Head of IR to proceed the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

Now I'd like to turn over to Mr. Keith Ke to begin today's presentation. Keith?

[Keith Ke, executive]

Okay. Thank you, K. C. Okay, please turn to Slide 5. This graph shows the net income trend in the past 8 years, and it's the first time that the group reached TWD 20 billion earnings.

And please flip to Slide 6. This light the way up for our group's performance of 2022. As we just mentioned, through the reported historical high of TWD 20.6 billion earnings with 4.3% growth Y-o-Y in 2022. Strong momentum from bank unit was the key point. Other subsidiaries might show some setbacks. However, it all made contributions with positive results. Bank's full year results also reached TWD 20.3 billion, widened the gap between U.S. and NT dollar rates, shifted funds from interbank lending to currency SWAP and that boosted treasury gains, even though core earnings remained intact as well.

Stepping into 2023 is necessary to be more careful about the industry's development. Manufacturing sector continued to shave inventories and orders, while nonmanufacturing also needed to adopt -- adapt to new norms for post-COVID era. Since capital market was full of uncertainty, risk averse and portfolio reallocation seemed to be [ must ]. Wealth Management business would be involved again. We think the products with overarching vision would take the lead. As of the overseas development, Frankfurt branch has opened in January, eyeing on Europe's long-term growth potential.

Okay, let's move to financial highlights. Please turn to Slide 8. This slide shows group's key figures. Group's consolidated net income was TWD 20.6 billion with 4.3% growth as we mentioned, increased mark-to-market losses after comprehensive income with 15.8% decline. EPS finished at $1.56 with 4.7% growth. ROE increased 3.6%. ROA dropped to 5.5%. Please take other figures as reference.

Let's move to Slide 9. This slide provides the breakdown of group's net income. Total net revenue improved 8.2% to reach TWD 67.8 billion. Even with higher credit charge last year, the total net income still finished with 4.3% growth.

And Slide 10 displays the earnings of major subsidiaries. Group's net income was mainly supported by bank's outstanding results, which has 15.2% growth Y-o-Y. First Securities and the First Life were both impacted by the turbulent financial markets and generated regressive results.

And next part, operating results. Please turn to Slide 12. This slide shows group and bank's net income and ROAEs. Group's net income was TWD 20.6 billion with 9.2% ROAE. Bank's net income also reached TWD 20.3 billion with almost 9% ROAE.

Please turn to Slide 13. This slide provides the breakdown of bank's earnings structure. Cumulative net revenue of 2022 finished debt TWD 54.5 billion with tremendous 16.3% growth Y-o-Y. Net interest income had 8.5% growth even though part of the interbank lending has shifted to SWAP. Fee income grew moderately with only 1.7% Y-o-Y. Gains on investment was attributed by the SWAP gains, which had a 74.7% growth Y-o-Y. Credit charges in 2022 was higher than our expectation with 37.2% increase. However, it will help to create a higher coverage ratio to stay for [ stay for rainy ] days.

Please turn to the next slide. Slide 14 presents the loan book mix. Total loan book came to TWD 2.32 trillion with 13.6% growth Y-o-Y. The huge increase in loan book was also one of the reasons to boost the net interest income. As of the loan breakdown, large corp loan had a 54.9% increase, leading all sectors. Mortgage grew by 10.5%. SME had 7.3% growth. FX loan also increased to 12.6%, especially from overseas branches, which had a 21.7% growth Y-o-Y. And Slide 15 shows the Q-o-Q trend of loan growth. Please take it as reference.

Okay, let's move to Slide 16. This slide shows the trends of LDR, spread and NIM. LDR dropped to 70.6% in fourth quarter. However, it still stood over 70% comparing with the 69.7% at the end of 2021. NT dollar LDR slid a little bit to 81.6%. FX LDR was also down to 44.3% Q-o-Q. Loan-to-deposit spread continued to improve to 1.48%, while NIM dropped to 0.99%. As we mentioned earlier, it's partially caused by the funding shift from interbank lending to SWAP. So adjusted NIM was still on a growing trend.

Please turn to Slide 17. This slide shows Q-o-Q trend of NT dollar and FX spread. NT dollar spread stayed flat at 1.38%. FX spread continued to increase 31 bps to reach 2.82% now. That also tells why the SWAP gains was huge.

Okay. Please turn to Slide 18. This slide shows the deposit mix. Total deposit was up 11.9% Y-o-Y. FX deposit increased 12.2%, while NT dollar deposit also had 11.7% growth. The demand for NT dollar deposits was impressive in fourth quarter. And on the right-hand side, it shows that the CASA rate slightly dropped to 68% now. Please turn to the next slide. Slide 19 shows the loan book concentration of major exposures. You can just take it as a reference.

Let's move to Slide 20. This slide shows the mortgage book yield, LTV ratios and the new mortgage lending trend. Mortgage yield continued to rise up to 1.97%. Both new mortgage LTV ratio and average mortgage LTV ratio stayed stable at 64.7% and 46.8%, respectively. [indiscernible] charge presents monthly new mortgage lending trend. Please take it as reference.

Okay, let's move to Slide 21. Cumulative net fee income of 2022 was TWD 8.1 billion, with 1.7% growth Y-o-Y. Wealth management fee income was the key issue to hold less growth, which decreased 2.8% due to [ lackluster ] of mutual fund sales. Bancassurance supported the wealth management fee income in debt. On the other hand, loan-related fee income was quite strong with 13.9% growth Y-o-Y due to solid loan demand.

Okay, please turn to Slide 22 for the Q-o-Q trend. Total fee income in fourth quarter was trending up with higher bancassurance fee revenue. However, the mutual fund sales continue to stay mute in fourth quarter.

Please turn to Slide 23 for operating expense. Total operating expense in 2022 was TWD 24.2 billion with 8.2% growth Y-o-Y. Cost to income ratio slightly rose up to 44.4%.

Let's take a look over the asset quality. Please turn to Slide 24. Top chart shows the coverage ratio and NPL ratio. Coverage ratio finished above 700%, marked at 709.2%. NPL ratio stayed at 0.18%. And the bottom chart shows the breakdown of NPL ratios. Both individual and the mortgage ratio slid 1 bp, respectively, to 0.11% and 0.7%. SME NPL ratio increased 1 bp to 0.29%. Large corp NPL ratio slid 1 bp to 0.07%.

Please turn to Slide 25. The pretax profits of overseas branches is over -- total profit was marked at 37% at the end of 2022. As we mentioned in the prior quarter, top left pie chart was skewed by one of bad debts from the Tokyo branch last quarter. So that's why -- this graph you just take it as reference. It's kind of skewed.

Let's move to Slide 26. Group's CAR improved to 125.2%. Bank's CAR and Tier 1 also climbed back a little bit to 13.8% and 11.8%, respectively.

Okay, that's the presentation. I will turn back the microphone to Annie for the Q&A section.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Thank you, Keith. Now we will proceed to Q&A session. Okay. Let's start with the first question. The first question was raised by [ Ms. Huang ] of [indiscernible]. Ms. Huang hopes to know that our outlook of loan portfolio growth in 2023. So let's start with our outlook of loan growth. First of all, the total loan growth, Annie?

[Annie Lee, executive]

Okay. I remember in the prior quarter, we mentioned that we set up a more moderate loan growth, like total loan growth at around 5%. But as most people know that the government implemented the cooling initiatives that the so-called the equalization of land ownership rules that will damp some transaction in the new home sales, especially for those speculators in the real estate market. So we actually have to slightly revise down our target for our mortgage lending for this year. Even though these new initiatives may not impact the existing or new or old contracts, but for the new buyers, who wants to invest in the real estate market, particularly for some corporate borrow, it would definitely impact the momentum. So we revised down our mortgage lending growth rate to a more normalized or organic pattern like 3%.

In terms of the corporate lending part, we noticed that the domestic momentum for corporate borrowing particularly for the lift-up of border restrictions and the booming domestic private consumption would help the investment for SME sectors, particularly for some sectors, like travel sectors or retail sectors would really get the booster. So for SME lending, we would stay around 4% and the large corp also 4%. Even though the exporting sectors, particularly for the tech company may receive a hard blow that the weakening orders would hit their borrowing power.

So in that sense, for domestic markets, we actually take a little bit conservative view on the property sectors, especially for the mortgage lending and for corporate lending would still remain resilient. And another bright side will be for the FX loan. We witnessed that our overseas lending seems getting momentum or getting a steam, so that would help us to revise up our projection for the FX lending from original 7% to 8% up to 9.5% to 10%. Hopefully, we can catch up with the restored loan demand in the overseas market post-COVID situation.

So overall, the loan growth projection this year should be somewhere around 4.5%, just slightly lower than our original projection around 5%. So I will highlight that only the mortgage lending revise down and the FX lending revise up. So the total loan book would expand around -- still around 4.5%, mainly driven by still resilient corporate borrowing and FX lending.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Annie. And I think I just need to conclude the loan growth just in case that some of you may join us for later [indiscernible].

[Annie Lee, executive]

All right. Okay. Let's just talk about our loan growth. We are kind of a little bit slightly revised down our total loan growth target to 4% to 5% for the 2023. And apart from that, we also revised down the mortgage lending to 3%, a little bit from the previous 3% to 4% to 3%. And as for corporate lending, we remain 4% forecast even for SME lending and for large corp, all are the same for 4% growth. As for FX lending, we revised a little bit up from 7% to 9% this year. Just in case that we saw the rebound from the European and American markets, especially American market rebounded pretty, like we have had a very, very low base, a contracted base in the past 3 years of COVID. That's the reason.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

And also, we kind of need to answer the next question, which is from Mr. Jemmy Huang. Jemmy hopes to know what's the actual SWAP revenue in fiscal year 2022 and our updated expectation of fiscal year 2023?

[Annie Lee, executive]

Last year, we booked around TWD 3.8 billion to TWD 3.9 billion SWAP gains for the whole year in 2022. And most of this SWAP gains were booked in the final quarter because until that time, the spread has gotten wider than in the first half of last year. So the total SWAP gains has reached historical high around TWD 3.8 billion last year. And therefore, this year, we actually set up a more aggressive target to increase our SWAP gains that we actually set up a target up to TWD 9 billion this year.

In the first -- in the -- let me put it in this way, in the final quarter of last year, we booked around TWD 1.2 billion SWAP gains per month. And in the first month of this year, I mean, in January this year, we actually booked around TWD 1.7 billion SWAP gains in the first month of this year. And when we calculate -- when we roll out into the second month of -- that will be this month, we still can book around TWD 800 million SWAP gains. So in that sense, for this year, we will project a more aggressive target to lock into the SWAP transaction that helped to boost the total top line. So for this year, it will be a much more aggressive targets, which is more than triple the size of the gains that we have reached last year. So last year, TWD 3.8 billion this year, up to TWD 9 billion total.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Annie. And I think we also answered the question from [indiscernible]. Also, she mentioned about can we offer the SWAP gains target. Okay. We answered 2 questions -- 2 people, same question. Also, we have a follow-up question, which is from Jemmy Huang. Jemmy hopes to know what's the adjusted NIM for 2022. I think we answered 2022 for full year. And also, we hope to know for single quarter -- third quarter and fourth quarter, including the SWAP revenue, okay, adjusted NIM for the full year and also for the single quarter. Do we have the single quarter? I think we can just add it up for the full year. It's a rolling base.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Last year in the final quarter, the adjusted NIM reached up to 1....

[K. C. Lee, executive]

1.09%.

[Annie Lee, executive]

1.09% because this is a moving average numbers. There was -- those break down into the single quarter numbers because we actually roll out from the first month of every year. So last year, the adjusted NIM reached 1.09%. And for this year, we would see more add up to another 10 basis points. So the final projection for NIM for the adjusted basis will be 1.19%.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

1.19% adjusted NIM for 2023. Okay. And also, we have another question is from Mr. Eric Shih. Eric Shih hopes to know that -- our 2023 fee revenue guidance.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Fee guidance remains similar around 5% to 6% mainly driven by the wealth management and the overseas service fee. In terms of loan, related fee would remain flattish due to high base period. So fee revenue growth should be somewhere around 5% to 6%. And the Wealth Management, we are targeting a 9% to 10% growth, driven by the increased sales of mutual funds and overseas fixed income products, and the overseas fee would also receive some boost to growth by 11% to 12% based on an expanding loan portfolio and other service fees.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And also, I think -- Eric also mentioned about the NIM, and I think we already answered. And also another follow-up question is about the credit -- I think it's credit cost, okay. Is there any change on our credit cost guidance, Annie?

[Annie Lee, executive]

For this year, as we have written down most of the impairment losses last year -- actually, we hiked our credit charge last year that we actually reached nearly 28 basis points net credit charge -- credit cost last year. So this year, we would have a more moderate provision target that the credit cost should become lower to less than 20 bps, around 19 to 20 bps this year to recover some collateral, some gains on collateral, which is still in the pipeline, yes.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And also, we have another question. Okay, let's move back to -- okay, we'll talk about dividend policy later, okay, Eric. And let's talk about our FX lending from Jemmy Huang. Jemmy hopes to know in which area are we more optimistic in terms of FX lending, any?

[Annie Lee, executive]

Basically, the U.S. market and also ASEAN countries will be our main focal point as these 2 regions would recover from their COVID constraint. So we actually see our overseas lending continued to become more resilient. If you look back to the -- of last year, actually, the overseas loan portfolio in the U.S. market advanced by nearly 30%. Of course, part of the reason will be the [ low bank, ] however, because the so-called invest in U.S. is pretty much like a norm currently. So the reallocation of the supply chain would help this loan demand to boost our loan portfolio growth in the U.S. market.

And when we talked about the ASEAN expansion, ASEAN also represent a high base area. However, this area will continue to get some [ lift ] thanks to the supply chain reorg. So this will be our target market to grow our loan base. So I must say these 2 areas will be our major growth driver in the coming years, U.S., North America and ASEAN countries.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And also, we have another question is from Mr. Lucas Huang of Morgan Stanley. Lucas hopes to know adjusted NIM, we already answered. Also he has a question about our LDR rate and CASA rate. He hopes to know what's the reason that 2022 LDR rate and CASA rate both declined.

[Annie Lee, executive]

In fact, when the U.S. rate went upwards and NT dollars rate remains pretty -- I mean, relatively lower than that of the U.S. rate that most of the borrower would tend to borrow lower-cost NT dollar and then SWAP or [ convert ] into U.S. dollars to fund their U.S. dollar demand. So that would show that the higher NT dollar LDR rate at above 80%, yes, more than 80%. And lower U.S. dollar LDR just less than [ 40 -- around 40% ]. That will be some arbitrage between the rate gap increase to currencies. And we actually projected this phenomenon will sustain because the U.S. rate remains in upward trend and NT dollar rate would stay stable here. So this year, the whole momentum or the trend would be will stay the same.

And talking about the CASA rate, actually, I highlight that the peak of the CASA rate has already demonstrated that as long as the rate move higher than the high CASA will no longer existed. So I would say that this CASA rate will continue to decline as long as the deposit rates remain at the high end. So these 2 phenomenon, including LDR and CASA rate would follow the pattern that I projected earlier.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And also, we have another question is -- also from Lucas. He is wondering that if our other liabilities in balance sheet is still maintaining positive for 2022?

[Annie Lee, executive]

Yes, yes, yes. We don't have significant losses on the valuation of OCI portfolio because we have a valuation again on our FX. I mean the capital in the overseas venture.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Yes.

[Annie Lee, executive]

I think capital [indiscernible] is wondering if our OCI remains positive after the volatility of capital markets.

Our OCI remained negative, but it has been offset by positive gains on the FX gains, [indiscernible] this is capital.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

So I think his question is after the deduction of this negative OCI.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Yes.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

So still positive.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Okay. About [ TWD 4 billion ].

[K. C. Lee, executive]

All right. Okay. So they still remain positive year after the deduction of [ that ]. Okay.

[Annie Lee, executive]

So there is no constraint that we cannot deliver a dividend payout.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

All right. Okay. I think we have had a question for Lucas. And also, as I would just keep the dividend question for the last part. And what's the [ CI ratio ] going up [ this region for the 2022 ].

[Annie Lee, executive]

Last year, mainly driven by a rising top line that both the net interest income and the SWAP gains both help to boost our top line. So the cost remain stable. So that's why it drove down the CI ratio because more top line than the cost.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

All right. Okay. And also let's talk about another question, which is from Ms. [ Jina Chen ]. Jina hopes to know our [ OBU ] exposure in case -- the single case exposure amount? And what's the provisioning percentage at the end of 2022. And also another question is, are we going to increase the provisioning for this single case in 2023? 3 questions, okay?

[Annie Lee, executive]

The exposure that we own for [ OBU ] is around EUR 25 million.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

EUR 25 million.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Up to end of February, this month. We plan to set aside around EUR 7 million. So that will be up to 28%.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

For 28% against this exposure on a February of 2023. And for...

[Annie Lee, executive]

And for when we will raise up the provision was pretty much subject to the results that the borrower negotiate how they would restructure the loan, yes, because this is a [ syndication loan ]. So we have to follow the conclusion of the consortium. But 28% provision looks [ slight ] for the moment, and we would be able to set aside more provisioning if the restructuring plan remain more [ clear and cut ], then we will have some more [ haircut ] or if this provision is sufficient. It's still not so clear. So we still have to wait until the final decision.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Yes. Let's -- okay, let's talk about another question from [ Ms. Chen Yang Chu ] of Yuanta. She hopes to know what is the top 3 of overseas branches on profit earnings growth, which country and what are their growth rate, the top 1, top 2, top 3.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Well, we have the top 1 will be Hong Kong.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

So that top 1 is Hong Kong branch.

[Annie Lee, executive]

And the second will be Cambodia.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

The second 1 is Cambodia.

[Annie Lee, executive]

And the third place with New York.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

The third 1 is New York.

[Annie Lee, executive]

And I must be quite frankly that this was mainly because of a very low base period due to the COVID.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Yes. Their growth rate is quite significant -- a little bit skewed because the very low base impact for these single branches. I think it's still kind of not so fair to treat them at the same level because they have different COVID impact in different timing of last year. So I think we should basically treat them as the whole. That will be more and more fair.

[Annie Lee, executive]

But in the past, actually, these 3 branches represent the core business in our overseas model because Hong Kong represents a Greater China business and Cambodia will be the core for our ASEAN market and the New York definitely will be the U.S. market. So these 3 will be pretty much a proxy model of our overseas business.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Pretty diversified. [indiscernible] Greater China and Asia and also the third 1 is the U.S.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Except for the Cambodia, Hong Kong and the New York used to be the champion and the second place, right? And then Cambodia represent the Taiwan business new hub in Asian countries.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And also, we have another question from Ms. Tina Chen. Tina just mentioned that -- and you mentioned about the credit charge, credit costs will be lower in 2023 because you have higher recovery forecast. So may I know which case that you have that chance to get recovery. What's your recovery amount?

[Annie Lee, executive]

The 1 prominent cases will be [ Qingpu ] We have...

[K. C. Lee, executive]

[ Qingpu ] shipping case. All right.

[Annie Lee, executive]

We have another collateral in [indiscernible] so we can recover part of the losses. And another 1 would be another steel company -- sorry, base metal company, we can also recover from the lateral [indiscernible] up to more than [ TWD 1.5 billion ] something because that collateral is quite valuable. These 2 would dominate the major write-back for this year. And don't forget that out of the portfolio that we have in our loan focus, more than 50% to 60% secured by collateral. So we can always recover from this collateral from time to time.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And let's go back to the final question. The first question is about our dividend policy, [indiscernible] and also Lucas and also many people here. Well, it'd be better than the previous year in cash dividends.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Good question. We are still studying how much we're going to distribute this year. But the thing is that because we are now approaching our deadline for the [ DC ] criteria set up by the [ FFHC ]. So after we expanded our loan book quite aggressively last year, that pretty much isn't up part of our capital base. And also because of the falling valuation of the OCI portfolio, that was also eroded our capital calculation. So in that sense, I must say that we may not be able to be so generous as we did in the past, whenever we record a growing profit and then we will distribute a quite generous dividend -- cash dividend like we did before.

But I must say that we would also look into the interest of our shareholders or investors. So we would try to maintain more decent dividend policy to set up target that the payout ratio will be around -- last time, I would say the 60%, but now I must say that 50% to 60%, and this will be, I mean, our target for this year. But a very generous dividend payout for cash may not be that appropriate for us now because we would see that if we're going to further expand our business that would be required to retain some earnings with that so that we would try to avoid any potential rights issue in the very near-term, yes.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. So the follow-up question is, is there any rights issue planned in 2023 or 2024?

[Annie Lee, executive]

This question is pretty much linked to how much we're going to deliver -- distribute our dividend this year. If we are able to adjust our dividend payout to more flexible than the price issue may not be so imminent. At least for this year, it's not in the pipeline anyway. So I mean this correlation between how much we distribute our cash dividend and would that lead to follow-up rights issue. I must clear that we would see which will be the most appropriate plan that to actually secure the long-term return of our shareholders and at the same time, not to overly dilute the shareholders' value in the market, yes.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And I think we have another question coming in from Mr. Leo [indiscernible]. Okay, [ Ms. Leo ] hope to know what's our future strategy about wealth management business, especially for mortgage buyers, mortgage borrowers. His opinion is that as the rate is high now, so how do we promote our wealth management products to these huge base mortgage clients. So as we are trying to prolong the product duration and how do we develop the wealth management business. I think we just need to -- I think the question is how do we expand our wealth management business in 2023.

[Annie Lee, executive]

I think your question try to link the wealth management business to mortgage business. It's a bit -- I mean this is -- this may be a model that most of the -- our peers that they try to penetrate into the mortgage borrow, and then they will lift up the LTV and then the -- to squeeze some money out of this mortgage borrow and then encourage the mortgage borrowers to invest the wealth management business. Is that what you mean?

[K. C. Lee, executive]

I think so.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Thanks. Okay. Well, this is quite a common model that most of our peers with pitch like this. But the truth is that now that the cost of mortgage actually went up. So if you like to [ lower ] your mortgage borrowers to switch the money that they can invest into the wealth management products. One criteria must meet it will be the product that we offer -- must offer a higher return than their mortgage costs, right? So currently, [Technical Difficulty] it will be part of our target audience to further develop the wealth management business, but we are now more interested into the high net worth customers and also, let's see some repatriated capital from overseas [indiscernible] business.

So I must add our model is slightly different from the so-called -- to capture this mortgage borrower to squeeze the money out of their mortgage borrowing because now their cost is higher. So we will see that our wealth management model is linked to the so-called high net worth and also some repatriated capital and also the really retail clients also our target audience. So the mortgage borrowers may be just part of the audience, but not the main source of our wealth management business targets.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And we have another question is about our SWAP gains. Can we provide in the SWAP gains portfolio amount?

[Annie Lee, executive]

I don't think I got this.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

So far, no?

[Annie Lee, executive]

But I still have the SWAP gains. [indiscernible].

[K. C. Lee, executive]

We already answered the SWAP gains.

[Annie Lee, executive]

I must highlight that if the U.S. rates continue to move higher, maybe the SWAP gains would be better than that because the rate gap even widen.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. And we have the last question here. It's about our post-COVID, the China exposure strategy. What's our post-COVID China exposure strategy given that the China has lifted all the COVID restrictions after the Chinese Lunar New Year. Annie?

[Annie Lee, executive]

Actually, when you look back to our China business, most of our China branches [ book ] profit last year, including Shanghai, Chengdu, Xiamen, and like you mentioned Hong Kong and Macau. So it implies that the business opportunity in the Greater China gradually surface. However, we would take a more, I mean, prudent manner to expand the [Technical Difficulty] the tension between the cross trade still persists. So we would look into some business opportunities like with the Taiwan business operates in both sides and particularly focused on the supply chain business, and that will be our major strategy to gradually catch up the Greater China momentum, not a very proactive, but a more prudent and conservative expansion plan to do the business in the Greater China region.

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Annie. And I think we have answered all of the questions. And I hope that you enjoy today's Q&A. And if you have more questions after today's conference, you can still e-mail us after the replay or something or you just got another question on your head and you can also e-mail us. So no need to worry, and I will turn over to Annie to have a conclusion.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Okay. Maybe I can add on 1 more thing. Well, I guess most of the investors in the market will get hit from the lower dividend payout from our peers is some [ banker ]. And I must say that our policy for First Financial will be stabilized or smooth out our dividend payout, but not to -- has a very volatile dividend policy. So that's why we would balance the whole investment return for our shareholders so that they can have a more predictable dividend gains from the investment in the First Financial. So management team would see what would be the most appropriate strategy to balance between out dividend payout. And also, is there any possibility that we can make going, yes, make this dividend payout more smoothly that people can actually figure out how much they will get the return from their investment from First Financial the portfolio because this would be our norm to have more smooth dividend policy, okay?

[K. C. Lee, executive]

Okay. Thank you, everyone. I hope you enjoy today's meeting, and see you next quarter. Bye-bye.

[Annie Lee, executive]

Bye-bye.