Hi, dear investors. Welcome to the E.SUN Financial Holding Company 2026 first quarter earnings call. I'm Martin. First, I would like to invite Deputy CFO, Sarah, to say a few words.
Hey, investors. E.SUN delivered a strong performance in the first quarter of 2026, marking a record high in net profit for the same period. Solid growth across core banking business, coupled with strong growth in securities and venture capital. Net income set a new record high, growing at a rate of 28% Y-o-Y. Today, we also announced the financial results for April. Growth rate of net profit for the first four months was 26%. Both net interest income and net income continue to grow at a solid pace. We are optimistic about our performance this year and expecting to achieve good results.
With effective cost management, C/I ratio improved to 46.9% for the first quarter. E.SUN will continue to strictly control the growth rate of expenses to a single-digit level this year. For overseas expansion, overseas branches and subsidiaries continue to post solid profit growth. In 2026, E.SUN plans to open the Mumbai branch in India and the Osaka representative office in Japan. Toronto branch in Canada is on the pipeline, further enhancing international service network. At an EGM held on January 23rd this year, our shareholders approved the proposed acquisition with Mercuries Life Insurance.
In March this year, E.SUN Bank launched three products from Mercuries Life Insurance across its distribution channels. On April 4th this year, the Fair Trade Commission has approved the merger acquisition. On April 27th, the board of Mercuries Life Insurance have approved the employee placement plan, which has joint signed Mercuries Life Insurance, its labor union, and E.SUN. The application is being prepared for submission to the FSC with the merger and acquisition expected to be completed in Q3 this year.
Lastly, E.SUN's outstanding performance has been recognized by international institutions. We were named Forbes Taiwan Best Bank for the sixth consecutive year and also named the Best Bank in Taiwan by Global Finance. E.SUN is committed to its ESG goals. For 20 years in a row, we have been selected into the DJSI index at S&P Sustainability Yearbook, marking the best performance among Taiwan peers. Looking ahead, we will continue to deliver long-term value to our shareholders. Thank you for listening. We will begin our presentation today.
Thank you, Sarah. Right now I will walk you through the financial and business review for the first quarter of 2026 for E.SUN Financial Holding Company. On slide page four, the total asset of the financial holding company was TWD 4.66 trillion, which grew by 13% year-on-year. Also the total asset of E.SUN Bank was TWD 4.61 trillion, also grew by 13% year-on-year. For the key financial indicators, the book value per share for E.SUN Financial Holding Company was 17.6, the double leverage ratio was 114, and the financial holdings cover ratio was 128, all at very adequate level.
On page five of the slide is the business and financial review. The net revenue of the financial holding company, first quarter was TWD 25.2 billion, which grew by 17.4% year-on-year. The net profit was TWD 10.1 billion, which also grew by 14% year-on-year. The EPS of the financial holding company was 0.62, the ROE was 14.43%, and the ROA was 0.88%. E.SUN Bank, for the subsidiaries, the E.SUN Bank net profit was TWD 8.8 billion, the E.SUN Securities net profit was TWD 1.1 billion, which grew by 137%.
E.SUN Venture Capital's net profit was TWD 710 million. For the E.SUN Asset Management, the net profit was TWD 100 million. For the business developments, the total loan balance reached TWD 2.7 trillion, which grew by 15.6% year-on-year, in which the corporate loan grew by 22.6%, the SME loan grew by 13%, the retail loan grew by 9%. The net fee income was TWD 8.9 billion, which grew by 27.1%, all of which the wealth management fee was TWD 4.0 billion, both set a new record high for the same period.
On the credit card, the fee was TWD 2.2 billion, which grew by 16.5%, and the consumption volume was TWD 150.6 billion. The board of the director of E.SUN Financial Holding Company also made a resolution to pay the cash dividend of TWD 1.4 per share, and the resolution is still subject to the approval by the AGM this year. On page six, on the top of the slide, you can see both the net profit and EPS are the highest for the same period. On the bottom part of the slide, ROE and ROA 14.43%, 0.8% are all the highest in the last five years.
On page seven is the net fee income of the financial holding company and subsidiaries. On the pie chart, you can see that the bank contributes to around 82.5% of the total profit of the financial holding company. Compared to last year, 2025, the proportion will be as high as nearly 90%, which means that the other subsidiaries, including E.SUN Securities, E.SUN Venture Capital, and E.SUN Asset Management, are contributing more to the financial holding company, which gives E.SUN a more balanced profit contribution and profit structure.
On the slide page eight, you can see the net income breakdown, the net profit grew by 14.2% with a very well controlled expense, which the operating expense grew by 10.6% year-on-year. On the next slide, page nine, is the financial holding company's revenue breakdown. 47% of the total net revenue comes from the net interest income, 35.4% comes from net fee income. On the right-hand side, you can see the charts of both net interest income and net fee income had a very strong growth momentum year-on-year.
On slide page 10 is the net fee income breakdown of the financial holding company. Wealth management is still the main part of the net fee income, which accounts for around 45.2% of the total net fee income. On the right-hand side, you can see both credit card and wealth management have very stable growth momentum, 6.5% year-on-year and 14.4% year-on-year. For the brokerage, thanks to high trading value of the TAIEX, the brokerage fee grew by nearly 100% year-on-year. On slide 11 is the capital ratio of the financial holding company and the bank.
For the financial holding company, the core ratio was 128%. For the bank, the BIS ratio was 15.42%, and the CET1 ratio was 11.99%, all at a very adequate level. On page 12 is the briefing of the E.SUN Bank, and on page 13, you can see the total deposit grew by 2.5% year-on-year, and the total loan grew by 15.6%, in which the foreign currency loan grew by nearly 30%. That's thanks to not just the domestic momentum for the domestic company, but also the overseas loan momentum is very strong in the first quarter for the E.SUN Bank subsidiaries overseas.
On page 14 is the loan profile breakdown of E.SUN Bank, and you can see on the left, the pie chart shows that E.SUN has a very balanced loan structure. Large corporate, SME, mortgage, and secured personal loan all accounts for around 20%-25% of the total loan book. On the right-hand side is the year-over-year comparison. You can see across all the loan structure, loan portfolio, we all had a very strong growth momentum year-on-year. On page 15, we want to highlight the SME loan and foreign currency loan for E.SUN Bank.
E.SUN is still right now leading the loan balance in private banks in Taiwan of the SME loan, which the loan balance was TWD 689 billion. For the foreign currency loan, the growth momentum was very strong in the past few years, also in the first quarter of 2026. On slide 16 is the overseas development of E.SUN Bank. Right now, the overseas branches and subsidiaries net profit contribute to 26.2% of the bank's total net profit. The overseas loan balance also shows a very good growth momentum in the first quarter, which grew by 10.2% year-to-date.
For the overseas network, right now, E.SUN has 35 operating sites across 11 countries. The new branches in Mumbai and Osaka rep office are scheduled to open in this year. The Toronto branch in Canada is on the pipeline. On page 17 is the deposit structure. On the left-hand side, you can see the overall LDR was 71.2%. The foreign currency LDR grew from 39%-44%, shows our strong momentum in the foreign currency loans. On page 18 is the NIM and spread for the bank. The NIM remains flat compared to the first quarter in 2025, at 1.32%.
On the right-hand side, the total spread grew by 5 basis points to 1.42% in the first quarter of 2026. On page 19 is the wealth management fee breakdown. The mutual fund accounts for around 40% of the total wealth management fee, and the bancassurance accounts for around 33%. On the right-hand side, you can see, thanks to a very reversed capital market atmosphere, both mutual fund and the bank had very good growth momentum in the first quarter. On page 20 is the credit card business.
Although the active card has been reduced from nearly 5 million- 4.7 million cards, however, the consumption and the per-card spending are still growing. The consumption for the first quarter of 2026 set a new record high for the same period in the past. On page 21 is the asset quality. E.SUN remains a very benign asset quality. The NPL ratio was 0.15%, and the coverage ratio was near 800%. For the credit cost, the credit cost for the first quarter was 0.14%. On page 22 is the NPL ratio across different sectors.
For the corporate, the NPL ratio was 0.06%, and for the mortgage and the secured personal loan was 0.1%. On page 23 shows the cost income ratio of bank. Due to the very well control of the expense, the cost income ratio for E.SUN Bank on the first quarter of 2026 was 46.9%, which has been improved since 2023, which is the peak. For our subsidiaries, on slide page number 25 is the securities performance. Again, thanks to a very high tax level and trade value, the securities net profit grew by 137% in the first quarter of 2026.
Also, the market share of our brokerage and the margin also are increasing. On page 26 is E.SUN Asset Management's performance. The total AUM for the domestic fund reached TWD 103 billion, while the AUM of discretionary funds was TWD 114 billion. Combined, representing a 9% year-on-year growth in the total AUM. Also, the net profit for the E.SUN Asset Management for the first quarter was TWD 100 million. Also hit a new record high for the same period. Lastly, on page 27, we'd like to update the timeline of the acquisition of Mercuries Life.
Last year in November, both E.SUN and Mercuries both had the acquisition in the agreed deal. On January this year, both companies had the votes by the EGM with a very high approval rate. On March 2026, E.SUN Bank started offering the Mercuries Life product. There are total of three products on the E.SUN's bancassurance channel. On April 4th, the FTC, the Fair Trade Commission has approved the acquisition of E.SUN Financial Holding Company and Mercuries Life. On April 17th, the employee placement plan was signed by E.SUN and the Mercuries Life and its labor union.
After the acquisition, E.SUN Financial Holding Company is expected to rank number five in terms of asset size among the private financial holding companies in Taiwan. That will be a briefing for the first quarter of 2026, and we are ready to take questions. Thank you. We have a question regarding the guidance across all the business lines. shows a very good loan momentum in the first quarter of 2026. Will the guidance 10% double-digit growth change because due to the very strong loan momentum? Sarah can answer this question.
Okay. At present, we have not changed to our guidance. For the loan and deposit growth, both are over 10% growth year-over-year. Regarding to the net fee income, we set the guidance of double-digit growth. Actually, all growth across all business lines remains in line with our expectations.
Okay, we have another question regarding the guidance of the NIM this year. At the beginning of this year, the guidance for the NIM expansion was 45 basis points. However, that's under the assumption that Taiwan's CBC will not change the interest rate and the Fed will cut by two or three times this year. However, since the possibility of Fed's rate cut has decreased, we think if also the CBC didn't change its interest rate and the Fed remains its interest rate at the level where it was, our NIM will grow by two to three basis points this year.
That will be our latest assumption for the NIM guidance. We have another question regarding the housing markets in Taiwan.
For the outlook of Taiwan's housing market, we expect Central Bank in Taiwan remains to keep stability in the real estate market, and the end is through a [Inaudible] . The policy is to shift banking line resources to concentrate it on the real estate lending. Currently, real estate transactions volume continue to decline, and demand remains subdued due to tight funding and wait-and-see attitude. We expected housing market this year will face shrinking transaction volumes, but the price is still sticky.
We set the guidance of the base rate for the mortgage growth rate is 6% year-over-year, which is higher than 3% of achieved last year. We will put more resources on the mortgage because we can see our clients still have the demand for it. For E.SUN, we think the yield for mortgage is still attractive for us and risk weight is still lower. This is our view regarding to the housing market and our guidance of mortgage. The fourth question is regarding to the asset quality. At this moment, we do not see any particular issues regarding to the asset quality, and the provisions remain at a normal level, that's the general provision.
Since then we've answered all the questions. If there's no other questions online, we can wrap up and call it a day. Again, thank you for your participation, and we look forward to seeing you next quarter. Thank you. Bye bye.
Thanks. Bye.