Hello, investors. Welcome to the earnings call of E.SUN Financial Holding Company of third quarter 2024. The time is 8:00 A.M. Taipei time, so we will start. I'm Qi Wei. I'll be the moderator of the conference today, alongside with me, we have Alex Chiu and Martin Lin, who are my colleagues in investor relations. First of all, I would like to invite Vice CFO, Ms. Sarah Chen, for a brief opening note.
Hi, dear investors. Good day. E.SUN has delivered a record-breaking performance in the first three quarters of 2024, surpassing previous years. Net income reached a new record high in the first nine months. Wealth management fees also hit a record high, driven by a robust investment market and strong demand for mutual funds, insurance, and overseas bonds. Our brokerage business also thrived with a 77% year-over-year increase in profit. This segment now contributes 8% to our total profit. With our diversified revenue streams, we are confident in the sustainability of our future earnings. We delivered positive results in cost control. Operating expenses in the first nine months grew at a more moderate pace of 8.3% year-over-year, resulting in a C/I ratio of 51.2%. We remain committed to disciplined expense management throughout the year. We continue to expand our international footprint.
In October, we opened a sub-branch in Kumamoto, Japan, to better serve Taiwanese businesses and their supply chain. We are also pursuing opportunities in North America, with applications for a branch in Toronto, Canada, and a representative office in Dallas, U.S.A. For the fourth consecutive year, E.SUN has hosted ESG sustainability initiatives, bringing together over 160 corporations from Taiwan and abroad, including Vice President Hsiao, and representatives from five countries. We remain steadfast in our commitment to environmental sustainability and will continue to partner with businesses to promote sustainability practices. Thanks for your attention.
Thank you, Sarah. Next, I would like to hand it over to Alex. He will walk us through the presentation, then we will start to take the questions.
Dear investors, for the following presentation, we'll begin with the Financial Holding summary, which is on the page one. For the Financial Holding Company's total asset by the end of September, it's TWD 3.9 trillion. As for the bank, it's TWD 3.89 trillion. The growth rate for the h olding company and the bank year-on-year is 9%. The securities house also delivered very strong growth in assets. For the key financial indicators, the book value per share by the end of September is TWD 15.47 per share, and double leverage ratio is 108.54%. The h olding company's cost ratio, we do not disclose the quarterly indicators, so it remains to be the same as what we disclosed in the first half. For the physical channel, domestically for our branch in bank, still remain at 139 branch.
For overseas channel, we just opened a Kuala Lumpur rep office this July, that makes E.SUN's overseas presence to be 33 operating sites in 11 countries and regions. The branches for security house remain unchanged. On page two is the business and financial review for the third quarter. For the first three quarters, the revenue for the h olding company was reported to be TWD 58.6 billion, grew by 21.6%. The net profit was TWD 20.9 billion, grew by 31.5%. Both we set a record high for the same period. Worth mention that for the single quarter, third quarter, the net profit was TWD 8.2 billion. That has made a quarterly high and also the fifth consecutive quarters to be positive growth. EPS for the Financial Holding Company will be TWD 1.31. ROE is 11.51%. ROA is 0.74%.
For subsidiaries, E.SUN Bank reported a net profit to be TWD 19.5 billion, grew by 39.7%. E.SUN Securities house reported net profit to be TWD 1.7 billion, grew by 77%, which is very strong growth. Both entities have set a record high for their profitability. For business development, by the end of September, our loan balance has grew by 13.6%, in which the corporate grew by 12.9% and the foreign currency loan grew by 12.8%. On the net fee income, we reported another record high to be TWD 20.5 billion. The growth rate was 30.3%, out of which the wealth management fee was TWD 3.5 billion for the single quarter. The first nine months it would be TWD 9.8 billion. The growth rate was 42.9%, which is another record high. For credit card fee was TWD 5.8 billion.
The growth rate was 10.3%, and the consumption for our credit card was another record high. While we still expand our business, our asset quality was quite benign. NPL ratio is only 16 basis points, and coverage ratio is at a level of 766.62%. For the business highlight of this quarter, we opened the Kuala Lumpur rep office in July, and last month, in October, our Kumamoto sub-branch opened. That makes E.SUN have three operating sites in Japan. Also we have filed the application for our regulator for the Dallas rep office in the United States, and we also get the approval from the regulator. Also, there is some good news to share with our investors. E.SUN has been awarded as the winner by the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance in corporate banking, human resource development, and digital banking categories.
We have been awarded by The Banker for the most innovative digital bank in Asia Pacific. On page three, you can see that we use four graphs to illustrate our financial success in the first nine months. The net profit was another record high, and EPS is TWD 1.31, and both ROE and ROA are also the highest in the past five years. By the end of September, our ROE is 11.51%, and ROA is 0.74%. Compared to what we reported in the first half, there are significant improvements in both ROE and ROA, and we will continue to grow these figures. On page four, you can see the contribution by subsidiaries in terms of our net income. E.SUN Bank continue to be the main subsidiary for the holding company, which contribute to 91.5% of the profit.
The security house is 8%, and the rest would be contributed by the venture capital. On the right-hand side, you can see that the growth momentum from the bank and the security are quite strong this year. On page five, you can see the net profit breakdown compared to the same period last year. E.SUN has followed the golden rule of our growth in terms of our business. That is, the growth rate of net profit will be higher than the growth rate of net revenue, of which were higher than the growth rate of OpEx. This year, we're happy to see that we're following this golden rule, and we'll continue to expand our business in this way. On page six is the revenue breakdown for the holding company. For the net interest income, contribute 42.5%.
Net fee income was 35%, and the rest, 22.5%, would be contributed by the fixed income and others. On the right-hand side, you can see that across all the revenue generators, that we deliver double-digit growth, and also for the fixed income and others, we turn to be positive in this quarter. On page seven is the breakdown of net fee income. Out of the TWD 20.5 billion net fee income, wealth management and credit card continue to be the two largest contributors. Wealth management contribute 47.6%, and credit cards, 28.4%. On the right-hand side, you can see that both credit cards, wealth management, and brokerage are all double-digit growth by the end of September. On page eight, you can see the breakdown for our wealth management fee.
This year, on the right-hand side, you can see that across all the product lines, including mutual funds, bank insurance, bond and others, and also custodian and trust, we all deliver double-digit growth. Out of which, bank insurance, following what we deliver in the past two years. Two years ago, the growth rate for bank insurance nearly 30%, and last year it would be 20%. This year, by the end of September, the growth rate for bank insurance has grew to 18.6%. For the mutual fund, we're seeing a nearly double growth this year. On page nine, you can see the credit card business breakdown. There are four indicators that we measure our business in credit card. That would be active cards, card consumption, per card spending, and gross fee income.
As you can see that card consumption by the end of September, the growth rate is 11.9%, and our market share has grew up again to 13.4%. On page 10 is the overseas business development. By the end of September, that our overseas branches and subsidiaries profit grew by 15.7%. That has contributed 31.3% bank's net profit. For the overseas loan balance, has grew by 17.8%. The overseas strategy will be still be the very important strategies for E.SUN to grow in the future. On page 11 is the deposit and loan structure. As you can see in the first line, the total deposit year-on-year growth rate is 9%, and across Taiwan dollar and foreign currency dollar, we all deliver very decent growth. For the total loan, the growth rate is 13.6%. This quarter, we indicate the loan by currency.
For Taiwan dollars, loan is 13.8%, and foreign currency loan is 12.8%. If we see that loans divided by different business lines, for corporate loan, it's 12.9%. Consumer loan is 14.9%, both at the double-digit growth level. On page 12 is loan portfolio. On your left-hand side, you can see that you can still keep a very balanced in corporate loan and personal loan. For corporate loan, SME is 25.9%, and large corporate is 21.1%. For the mortgage, it's 24%, and secured personal loan is 20.7%, and the rest will be unsecured personal loan and subsidiaries. On your right-hand side, you can see that across all the major loan business, we deliver a positive growth this year. On page 13 is the loan-to-deposit ratio. For the overall loan-to-deposit ratio, has gone high to 71.1%.
For the NT dollar LDR, it has gone high to 88.6%, and the foreign currency LDR would be 37.2%. On page 14 is the NIM and spread. This quarter, we report our NIM to be 1.28%, the same level as what we reported in the second quarter. On your right-hand side is the spread. We're happy to see that there's a 5 basis points increment compared to what we did report in the second quarter. Our spread is 1.27%. The growth and the incremental would benefit from both the loan side and also the funding cost. The funding cost decreased by 1 basis point, while our loan yield has gone 4 basis point increment. On page 15 is the asset quality. On our asset quality, NPL ratio remains at a very benign level, and also coverage ratio at a very adequate level.
On your right-hand side, you can see is the credit cost. It has been 18 basis points till the end of September. On page 16 is the NPL ratio across different business lines. For corporate, it has been 17 basis point, and mortgage is only 7 basis point. On page 17 is the cost-income ratio. By the end of September, our cost-income ratio is 51.2%. Compared to what we had in previous year, there is a significant improvement in the cost-income ratio, and we'll continue to optimize this ratio to optimize our operating efficiencies. On page 18 is the capital adequacy ratio. In the first half, our double leverage ratio is 128%, and the Bank's BIS ratio is 14.98%. On page 21 will be the initiative that we held for the fourth consecutive year, that we invite more than 160 corporate clients to call for sustainable development.
This year, we also invite our Vice President, Hsiao. She also attended the meeting in person to show the determination from the government to the sustainable development goals. That would be the end of the presentation, and we will head into the Q&A section.
Thank you, Alex. Now we will proceed to the Q&A. Please fill in your question in the dialogue box, and we will take the questions one by one. Thank you. Okay, investors. Now we have three questions on the queue. The first one is: What is the loan growth and fee income outlook for next year?
I have to apologize that we haven't finalized our budget for next year. Till the fourth quarter earnings call in February, next month, we will disclose our guidance for loan growth and fee income growth. What I can give you now is, if you look at the history of E.SUN, we can always maintain a loan growth at high- single- digits. Also, as what we see in the wealth management market, the outlook for next year, we still remain positive, quite positive for the wealth management and for the credit card.
That is also our view on fee income growth for the next year.
The second question is the sensitivity to NT dollar and U.S. dollar rate cuts.
I think for the past few years, we actively adjust our funding cost. Due to the market condition is quite uncertain, as you can see, Trump will win the election, but that brings another uncertainty for the future market, especially for the US Treasury and their policy. We find it is very difficult to predict the sensitivity in New Taiwanese dollar or in U.S. dollar because what our goal is to actively control our cost of funding. In the other way, we are trying to maximize our return both on loan and investment. We think the sensitivity is very hard to predict. For the third question is the FSLDR for next year. At this moment, our FSLDR is around 37%. For next year, our target hopes to reach at 40%, and we will try very hard to maintain the goal.
Thank you. Now we have the next question coming in. The question is about wealth management. We see strong momentum in the wealth management fee income. When will the visibility last till?
Okay. For the wealth management, in the first 10 months of this year, we have seven months out of 10 months, the wealth management fee income surpassed TWD 1 billion. Before this year, we never had one single month to have the wealth management fee income more than TWD 1 billion. That kind of explains the performance of wealth management business and the growth that we demonstrate this year. I think the main point of difference for this year is our strategy to focus on bancassurance, and it started to pay back to the fee income.
In the past two years, our fee income from bancassurance, it was 25%, then 35%. This year we once again deliver a double-digit growth till September, it's 19%. Our strategy is to increase, to enhance the bancassurance fee income proportion to be more than 40% of the overall wealth management fee income. The reason why we do that is because the bancassurance is less sensitive to market volatility. It will form a very solid foundation for our wealth management fee income, and we will continue to increase the proportion of bancassurance. We are quite positive on that. The reason being, first, on the product offerings. We try to enrich our product offerings and to increase the insurance company partners to provide more products to fulfill the demand, the needs of our customers. Secondly is our financial consultants.
They are getting more and familiar with the skills to sell bancassurance products and to target the right customers to sell the insurance policies. They started to replicate their successful experience. That will give us more and more momentum on the bancassurance sale, and in turn, it will help us to increase the wealth management income.
We have the next question coming in. It's about NIM and spread. In the third quarter, we see an improvement in spread and the NIM is flat. What is the outlook for the fourth quarter of NIM and spread for E.SUN?
Well, I think for the NIM and spread forecast, our forecast will remain flat to a small, and probably have more a few basis points to be up. The reason is that for the spread, for our loan portion, our NT dollar loan portion is larger than the FX loan portion. Since Taiwan Central Bank hike the required reserve rate, which will cause a squeeze in the funding market. Therefore, we still have room to adjust the loan yield. That will cause our spread to be up. Although Fed cut rate in September, we also see the loan demand in FX loans, the demand is more and more. We think the spread still have room to be stable or has a few basis points to be up.
For the NIM side, since Trump win the U.S. presidential election, maybe we think the rate will not be fall as much as we previously think. There's still positive for our FX swap and the fund investment. For the NIM side, we think probably it still have a little bit to be up. That's our forecast.
Thank you.