Dear investors, welcome to the earnings call result of first quarter 2024. The time is 8:00 A.M., we will begin now. My name is Chi-Wei , I will be the moderator today. With me in the meeting room, we have my colleague, Alex Chiu and Martin Lin. At the beginning, I would like to invite the Vice CFO of E.SUN, Miss Sarah Chen, for a brief opening note.
Good day, dear investors. Welcome to join today's investor conference call. E.SUN delivered a good performance in the first quarter this year, making a record high in quarterly net profits. In this quarter, our net fee income set a new record and growing at a rate of 26.2% YoY. The net fee income from wealth management also achieved a record high. This year, the investment market has been active, with double- digits growth in fee income from major products such as mutual funds, insurance, and overseas bonds. Additionally, credit card transaction amounts also marked the highest records for the first quarter in history. Today, before the earnings conference, we announced the results for April. Growth rate of net profit for the first four months reached 5.4%. Net fee income continued to grow, reaching 31.3%.
The fee income from wealth management in April was the best monthly result in the past years. We are optimistic about our fee income performance for this year, and expect it to achieve good results. In the presentation, operating expenses in the first quarter were slightly higher, with YoY growth exceeding 10%. However, in April, the YoY growth rate of operating expenses decreased to 6.7%, and the CI ratio dropped to 53.5%. We will still strictly control the growth rate of expenses to single- digits growth for the whole year. On overseas expansion last year, E.SUN established a branch in Fukuoka, making it the first Taiwanese-owned bank to establish a branch in Kyushu. This year, we are further applying to establish a sub-branch in Kumamoto, the location of TSMC's factory, which will serve TSMC and its supply chain.
In additional, we are also applying to open a branch in Toronto, Canada. In the next few years, E.SUN plans to strengthen our overseas presence. Lastly, E.SUN has consistently received recognition in ESG. Last week, E.SUN has been listed in top 5% in corporate governance evaluation for the ninth year by Taiwan Stock Exchange. We will continue to deliver value to our shareholders. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Sarah, for summarizing the highlight of the first quarter. Now I will spend a few minutes to quickly walk you through the presentation of the first quarter. On page one, the E.SUN Financial summary of both the holding company and the bank, the asset growth year-to-date is 2.7%. The book value per share is TWD 15.66 per share, which is slightly increased from December 2023. Double leverage ratio and the CAR ratio for financial holding company are both at a very adequate level. Next page is the business and financial review. As Sarah just mentioned, both the revenue and the net profit were record high. In the first quarter, net revenue grew by 10.7%, and the net profit was a 3.4% growth, and it also set a record high, highest profit of single quarters.
According to the latest monthly results, our net profit as of April is TWD 8 billion. The growth rate further goes up to 5.4%. For the first quarter and for the first four months, E.SUN continued to deliver very consistent and very stable performance. Not only the bank, but also the other two subsidiaries of E. SUN Securities, and also E.SUN Venture Capital, both deliver very good performance in the first quarter. Business development, the loan balance as of the first quarter grew by 9.5%, in which the corporate loan grew by 8.6%. SME loan growth was 11.8%. Retail banking, the growth rate was also very good. It was at 10.5%, mainly contributed by mortgage.
The fee income, which is the highlight of our performance this quarter, the growth rate is 26.2%, in which the wealth management fee income was a 34.7% growth, and it was also the highest net fee income from wealth management of any single quarter. Credit card, it was also a very good performance. The growth rate was 7.1%. As of the first four months as of April, the fee income continued to go up. The growth rate is more than 30%. Especially wealth management net fee income growth rate was more than 40%. We are very positive about fee income performance and also wealth management. This is something that we are very confident in this year. Other business highlight, of course, the dividend policy, the payout ratio is more than 4% for cash dividend payout ratio.
We plan to pay TWD 1.2 per share for cash and TWD 0.2 per share for stock. This resolution made by the Board is subject to approval by the AGM. The other hand, we are also recognized by many institutions. For example, Global Finance and Forbes both approved that E.SUN is the best bank in Taiwan for this year. E.SUN, once again, awarded by Credit Guarantee Fund for 19 years in a row. The other hand, The Asset also gave the best SME bank in Taiwan to E.SUN, and this is the 12th consecutive year for E.SUN to receive this award. Both awards recognize that E.SUN is the top performing bank in SME sector. Our next page is the financial performance for the past five years, as you can see.
The net profit is TWD 6.25 billion, EPS was TWD 0.4, ROE was 10.38%, and ROA is 0.68%. All of these numbers are at a very decent level. Our next page is the net income of financial holding company and the subsidiaries. The bank contribute to 89% of the net profit, while other two subsidiaries the Securities and Venture Capital both perform adequately in the first quarter and also contribute a fair amount of profit. The next page is the net profit breakdown. The net revenue grew by 10.7%. Operating expenses, the growth rate was more than 10%, 13.5%. The bottom- line was 3.4%, but as what we just indicated earlier, as of April, the operating expenses growth rate goes down from 13.5% to 6.7%. Cost control is something that we are aware of and very important. We will continue to maintain a very disciplined cost control.
Our next page is the revenue breakdown for the financial holding company. The first quarter, the net revenue was TWD 17.5 billion. The net interest income contributed 44.7%, followed by net fee income, 35.7%, and other income. On the right-hand side, the growth rate of the three categories of revenues. The net interest income grew by 18%, and fee income grew by 26.2%. The other income, there was some decline, but the decline is partly offset by the increase in net interest income. Maybe we will discuss that later in the Q&A session. On the next page is the net fee income breakdown, and the total net fee income is TWD 6.2 billion. The wealth management contributed 47.8%, followed by credit card, brokerage, and corporate banking. On the right-hand side, as well you can see, wealth management growth rate is 34.7%.
Till April, the growth rate continuing to grow to more than 40%, so wealth management is performing very well this year. We are very confident about the investment sentiment this year, and our customers have strong willing to make investment through E.SUN. On next page is the breakdown of wealth management fee income. The mutual fund accounts for 45%, bancassurance accounts for 35%, and other products account for roughly 20%. On the right-hand side, the mutual funds growth rate, very stunning. Is it 67% year-on-year growth? Other products, including overseas bond and structured notes, the growth rate is also very impressive. It's 28.8%. Bancassurance, we maintain a good growth rate at 10%. All of these three categories of products will continue to grow in the months to come and in the second quarter. On next page nine, we use four graphs to illustrate our market position in credit card.
On active cards, the market share is 12.7%. In card consumption, the market share is 12.4%. As what we mentioned before, we do not want to jump into the price competition with our peers, so it may cause some loss in market share. We also maintain a very healthy profit growth in fee income coming from credit card. At the same time, the credit card consumption year-on-year, the growth rate is 8.6%. On the left bottom corner, the per card spending, it's past TWD 9,000 per month, and the growth rate is also more than 6%. I would say both the quality and the quantity of our credit card are improving. On next page is an illustration of our overseas business development. In the first quarter, the overseas subsidiary and branches contributed nearly 35% of net profit, and the profit growth rate is more than 10%.
We especially want to highlight the overseas business will continue to be very important to E.SUN, and we want to maintain a very healthy proportion of our profit from the overseas at 35%-40%. It is our target. Business development, we found location for Toronto branch and the rep office in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Also, as Sarah just mentioned, we are applying for a sub-branch in Kumamoto, and it will help us to deliver better services in the semiconductor supply chain, which is going to be established in Kumamoto. The sub-branch will work alongside with the Fukuoka branch. Next page 11, is a table of deposit and loan structure. The total deposit year-on-year growth rate is more than 8%. The year-to-date growth rate is 2.4%. The foreign currency deposit year-to-date growth rate is 2.7%. The time deposit growth rate is 3.27%.
Total loans, the YoY growth rate is 9.5%. The year-to-date growth rate is 2.4%, in which the corporate loan growth rate is 8.6% year-on-year, and the year-to-date growth rate is 1.6%. Foreign currency loan growth rate year-to-date is 4.5%, year-on-year is 7.5%. The consumer loan performed quite well. The year-to-date growth rate is more than 4%, year-on-year growth rate is more than 10%. Especially the mortgage loan growth rate, 3.3%, year-on-year growth rate 10.7%. The unsecured personal loan, even though there was a slight decline, it was mainly because of the fade out of the loan relief during COVID period. There was some decrease in the balance of unsecured personal loan. We are confident that the unsecured personal loan growth rate will turn positive later this year.
The strong growth in consumer loan sector, it also represents that the consumption market in Taiwan now is very healthy and going very strong. Next page 12, is the loan portfolio breakdown. Total loan is nearly TWD 2.1 trillion, which is quite evenly breaking to the corporate side and the retail side. The right-hand side is the year-on-year comparison of all the loan sectors. As what you can see, all the loan sectors are performing very well. Next page 13, is the deposit structure. The left-hand side is the loan-to-deposit ratio. The NT dollar LDR is 86%. Overall LDR is 69%, and the foreign currency LDR ratio is 36%. The right is the deposit structure. In this quarter, the year-on-year growth rate for the NT dollar demand deposits growth rate is more than 7%.
The cost out ratio of E.SUN is 57.3%. The foreign currency deposit also nearly flat, grew a little bit by about 2.7%. The foreign currency deposit now accounts for 34% of the overall deposit for E.SUN. Next page 14, is the NIM and spread. In this quarter, our NIM slightly dropped by 1 basis point, it was mainly due to the increase of funding cost, especially in March, the Central Bank of Taiwan raised the interest rate by 12.5 basis points. It will be reflected in our funding cost immediately after the announcement. However, the fixing rate on the asset side will not reflect immediately. There will be a delay effect. The asset rate, it will not fully reflect until June. There was some impact to our NIM and the spread for this quarter.
The NT dollar, the rate hike is one of the reasons. On the right-hand side is the quarterly interest spread. The interest spread is 1.24%. Next page is the asset quality. The NPL ratio is 16 basis points. The coverage ratio is at 770%. On the right-hand side is the provision and credit cost. The annualized credit cost is about 9 basis points. E.SUN continues to maintain the asset quality at a very good level. Next page is the NPL ratio by product. On corporate, the NPL ratio is 16 basis points, and mortgage, the NPL ratio is only 4 basis points. Compared with the market, E.SUN is in line with the market in terms of the NPL ratio level.
On cost-to-income ratio, in the first quarter, even though the cost increased by 13%, but as of April, the growth rate of cost declined to only 6.7%, which drove down the cost CI ratio to 53% as of April. CI ratio is a very important indicator that we are watching, and we will continue to implement cost-saving measures to control costs. Next page is the capital adequacy ratio. We do not renew this CAR ratio and BIS ratio for holding company and for the bank. It is the same as what we disclosed for the end of 2023. This is all for the presentation of the first quarter earnings. Now we can head into the Q&A section. Please raise your question and fill into the dialogue box. Thank you.
We have our first question about the loan growth target for this year.
In the first quarter, the loan growth was quite robust. However, we still do not change the loan growth guidance for the full- year, still maintain that 8%-10% for the full- year. Until now, we are in line with the growth target, and the growth guidance for this year.
The second question is about the fee income growth target for this year.
In our previous earnings call, the guidance that we gave for the fee income, it was double-digit growth for the full- year. Judging from the very robust performance in both credit card and wealth management, it is potentially that we can revise our target for fee income upward. Yeah. We still maintain double-digit growth, but there is chance the full-year target will be at a higher- end of double- digit.
The third question is about the OpEx growth. How can E.SUN slow down the OpEx growth from 13% to single- digit in April?
I think there are two reasons. First of all, of course, cost control is something that E.SUN is very concerned, We have set up some unit in every business unit, which is dedicated to cost control, especially in the spending in technology. We have a special unit that will review every project before the implementation and to prioritize if it is necessary to implement such project, and to manage the overall cost of every project and to spend our money more smartly. This is the very first reason. This is something that we are working on. The second reason is, in April last year, there was a one-off cost associated with the rights offering that we had last year.
Last year, we raised capital, there was some cost associated with the employees' rights offering subscription, and the amount is about TWD 400 million. That contributed to the single-digit growth rate. Thank you.
Okay. Our next question is about the foreign currency loan growth in the first quarter. What is the driver for foreign currency loan growth in the first quarter?
The main driver for the foreign currency loan coming from the overseas market, especially in countries, for example, like Australia and our Los Angeles branch in the U.S., there are many renewable energy and project finance going on, and our branches capture those opportunities to participate in syndicated loans in those markets. That contributed to quite good growth for foreign currency loan.
However, the foreign currency loan at the first quarter is still not very strong, it is still mainly because of two reasons. First is the currency rate. The strong U.S. dollar, it will make corporates less willing to borrow. In U.S. dollar at this point. Secondly, of course, the high interest rate. We expect our foreign currency loan, the growth momentum will be better in the second half of this year as the currency and the interest rate becomes more favorable for borrowing in U.S, dollar. The foreign currency loan growth, we expect to be better in the second half than the first half.
We don't see any new question coming in, I think we have answered all the questions. Thank you for your participation in the earnings call for the first quarter with E.SUN. We hope to speak to you soon again.