Hello, investors. Welcome to the E.SUN Financial Holding webcast conference for the first quarter of 2023. Today I'll be the moderator. My name is Chiwei , along with my colleagues, Anthony and Alan. At the beginning, I would like to invite CEO and President of E.SUN Financial Holding, Magi Chen, for a brief opening note.
Welcome. Thank you for joining our investor conference. For the first quarter, E.SUN Financial Holding and E.SUN Bank both reported the highest quarterly earnings in history. E.SUN Financial Holding net profit grew by 39.7%, with an ROE of 12.03%, and E.SUN Bank grew by 49.7%. Today, we also disclosed the profit for the first four months, TWD 7.6 billion. It is a 56.1% YoY growth and it's the record high for the same period. We had a strong start for the year and we will carry on our good work. In response to the recent global economic slowdown, Taiwanese corporates are also acting swiftly to deal with the cycle at inventory levels. E.SUN provides corporate clients with financial support solutions including loans, FX hedging , loan business, and ESG advisory. The first quarter total loan growth was 5.6%, especially ESG green loans grew by 83.8%.
The ESG-related loans now account for 34.8% of corporate loans. On fees, credit card fees grew by 12.3% and have double-digit growth for the third quarter in a row. The main driver is overseas travel and consumption, which increased by 17% YoY. Wealth management fees in the first quarter decreased year-on-year but had improved significantly than the fourth quarter 2022. As the financial market recovers, demand for wealth management products is also getting stronger. By the way, E.SUN set up a new position, Financial Planner. Over 100 people who are mainly responsible for the advisory on insurance products. We expect wealth management product mix will be more balanced, and we expect to deliver double-digit growth in fee income. Lastly, I want to thank investors for supporting the TWD 16 billion capital raising, which has closed on May 3rd with a great success.
With strong capital, E.SUN will continue to strengthen our business in Taiwan, in overseas, in digital, and in ESG. We will work hard to create more value for all shareholders. We are confident that E.SUN will have a good performance this year. Thank you.
Thank you, Magi. Now I will spend a few minutes to walk you through the presentation of the first quarter. On the first page is the financial holdings summary. For the holding company and E.SUN Bank, the assets surpassed TWD 3.4 trillion in the first quarter. On book value per share, it went up to TWD 14.34 per share. On total leverage ratio, it was 103%. The CAR ratio for the holding company, it was 128%. There was no change to our channel, no matter in domestic or overseas. On the next page is the business and financial review for the first quarter. The net revenue was TWD 15.8 billion. Net profit, as Magi pointed, it was a record high for any quarter of history. The net profit was TWD 6 billion. It grew by 39.6%.
For E.SUN Bank, it was also a record high with a growth rate of 49.5%. For the EPS of the holding company, it was TWD 0.42 per share, a rise of 12%. For the first four months, we also reported the preliminary net profit. It was TWD 7.6 billion. The growth rate was 56%. It was a record high for the same period in history. I also want to note that in April, the net profit, it took the expenses associated with the rights offering because we reserved 15% of the share for the subscription for our employees. There was some expenses, about TWD 455 million associated with the rights offering. After taking that expense into consideration, we still set a record high for the same period in net profit.
On our business operation, the total loan growth rate was 5.6%, in which SME was 5%. Foreign currency was 3%. I also want to mention is that the sustainability-related loan growth rate was 14%, especially what has been mentioned by Magi. The ESG-linked loan growth rate is even higher, more than 80%. The sustainability-related loan now accounts for about 35% of the corporate loan. The net fee income in the first quarter was TWD 5 billion, which was a 4.4% decline. However, we are quite positive about this result because for credit card fee, we see a very strong recovery of overseas travel. The growth rate for the credit card fee was 12% growth. For the wealth management, it was generally flat.
However, we still see some very positive signals, especially from the strong growth rate of our digital client, no matter in the new account or the AUM. We are quite positive and quite promising about the fee outlook for the year. What's worth mentioning is that in FX fee income and other revenue, we have a very strong growth in the first quarter. It was mainly due to the mark-to- market gain and various appropriate money market operation. On asset quality, we maintain very stable and benign asset quality in the first quarter. There are some highlights in the first quarter. First of all is the capital raising. We have successfully raised TWD 16 billion. We will use the fund to enhance capital adequacy ratio and business development of E.SUN Bank.
In this quarter, we continue to receive many honors and recognition from many outside institutions, including Forbes, which nominate E.SUN as the best bank in Taiwan, Global CEO Magazine, it also nominate E.SUN as the first prize in ESG reward. Also, E.SUN and its subsidiaries were certified by Taiwan Corporate Governance Association, with excellent grade in the CG evaluation. I think E.SUN is pursuing the overall performance, not only the financial performance, but also want to be the most respected company by the community. ESG is our long-term commitment, and we will continue to put more effort into ESG. In the next page, which is a performance of net profit, EPS and ROE and ROA. As well you can see in the ROA, we see a very strong bounce back in the first quarter.
The ROE has recovered strongly from the previous year level, the ROA also delivered 0.7%. Next page is the net income of holding and its subsidiaries. As you can see for the bank, it was a very strong growth in the first quarter. Next page is the net profit breakdown. In net revenue, the growth rate was 16.6%. In operating expenses, we have a 5% growth, mainly due to a relatively low base. In net provision, we have a positive number for the net provision. It was mainly due to, in the first quarter, there was a slight decline in our total loan balance, we do not have to reserve the general provision. For the next page, is the net revenue breakdown. In the first quarter, E.SUN recorded net revenue of TWD 15.8 billion, including NII account for 42%, and fee income account for 33%.
Other income accounts for 26.8%. As you can see in the right-hand side, both NII and net fee income declined slightly, other income, it was a very solid performance in the first quarter. In the next page, there was a fee income breakdown. In the first quarter, we recorded TWD 4.9 billion in net fee income, including 45% coming from the wealth management and 33% from credit card. Especially in credit card, we delivered a 12% growth in the first quarter. Next page, I would like to use four graphs to illustrate our performance and market position of our credit card. In active card, our market share was 13%. In card consumption, our market share was 13.2%. I want to say something about the card consumption is that, in this year, our strategy is we do not want to compete with our peers on price.
To pursue a higher market share at the expense of our profitability. What we want to pursue is a profitable growth. However, we still managed to maintain our consumption growth at double- digits in the first quarter.
Still, we maintain our credit card consumption market position as the third in the market. Our next page is the deposit and loan structure. On total deposits, it was TWD 2.86 trillion. It was a 1.3% decline year-to-date. Among which, the foreign currency deposit declined by 8.3%. It was mainly our strategy because the high rising interest rates in foreign currency deposit will jeopardize our funding cost. We strategically want to lower the high cost deposit to maintain a more stable funding cost level. On total loan balance, it was TWD 1.95 trillion, which was 0.3% decline year-to-date. On foreign currency loan, it was a 5.5% decline year-to-date.
It was mainly due to a weaker demand for foreign currency loan from Taiwan domestically because the local corporate, they would rather borrow money in NT dollar rather than in U.S. dollar because of the interest rate difference. For the overseas market, we still see a quite healthy loan growth in our overseas branches and subsidiaries. Our next page is the deposit structure. On the left-hand side is the LDR. For the loan- to- deposit, the ratio of foreign currency, it was 34%, and the overall, it was 68%. Our next page is the loan portfolio breakdown. Our total loan, it was TWD 1.9 trillion, in which SMEs account for 26.7%, and large corporates account for 21.8%. On retail banking, mortgage accounts for 25.3%, and secured personal loan account for 19%. Unsecured personal loan, it was 6.5%.
When you look at the right-hand side, when you compare to the same period of last year, you can see across all sectors, we have growth across the whole sector of loans. Our next page is the NIM and spread trend chart. On the left-hand side, we managed to improve 4 basis points quarter-on-quarter in our NIM. Our spread, it was a 1 basis point decline, and we have explained in great detail in our earlier session, earnings conference this afternoon. Our next page is the asset quality. Our NPL ratio was 0.17% NPL ratio. The coverage ratio is nearly 700%. Next page is the NPL ratio by product category. For the corporate NPL, it was 19 basis points, and mortgage NPL, it was only 5 basis points. As you can see, we still manage a very sound, very benign asset quality.
When you flip to the next page to look at our asset quality trend relative to the market. Still, the asset quality is a very important strength of our E.SUN. On the next page is the CI ratio. It was 53%, a very significant improvement compare with last year. We hope we can continue the very good performance in management of CI ratio. On capital adequacy ratio, we do not renew our CAR ratio or BIS ratio in the first quarter, and we will report our BIS ratio in our second quarter earnings conference. Our next page is some of our recent improvements and achievements in ESG. E.SUN will continue to enhance and expand our scope of concern in ESG.
No matter in biodiversity or on the social side, we are included in the Bloomberg GEI, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, or on corporate governance. On this page is some of the recognition E.SUN received from very important sustainability rating agencies or institutions, including DJSI, MSCI and Sustainalytics. E.SUN is also nominated by the regulator to be one of the founding members of the Coalition of Movers and Shakers, which is the very important and leading coalition for ESG in the banking industry. This is all for the presentation of the first quarter. Now we are open to answer your questions. Thank you. Yes, we have our first question about the wealth management performance and the wealth management fee outlook for the year. First of all, is the wealth management fee breakdown.
We used to disclose our fee breakdown in mutual funds and bancassurance and other financial products. This year, the breakdown is 36% from mutual fund sales, 43% from bancassurance, and 21% from other financial products. You can see, in the past, E.SUN used to have a more skewed fee breakdown in our wealth management product. We used to have nearly 50% from mutual fund sales, and now we have a more balanced wealth management fee breakdown. This year, we still see a very good outlook from the sale of insurance and other financial products. Especially, as Magi just mentioned in the opening notes, we set up a new position called financial planner. Their role will mainly be the insurance consultant for our clients who have the need for insurance protection for their wealth succession, for the protection against market volatility.
We have a very positive outlook for the fee income associated with the bancassurance sale. For the full- year, we expect our wealth management fee income will grow by 10% or double-digit growth. Thank you.
Hi there, investors. We have a question asking why we see a weak quarter-on-quarter loan demand and how we are targeting a full-year target for loan growth. I think for the first quarter, as Chiwei was mentioning in the introduction, I think due to inventory issues, the market is more conservative, and the lending syndication loan cases are less in the first quarter. That is why we have seen a weak quarter-on-quarter loans. For the overall, we see the market is more stabilized in the following quarters, and in Taiwan, the real estate market is stable. Therefore, we think the full- year, our loan target will be around 7%. If we break down by corporate and retail, corporate will be around 8%-8.5%, which lending from overseas branches will be a very strong driver.
For the consumer lending, which is around 5%-5.5% for full-year loan growth. Thank you.
I would like to add on the previous answer. On the first quarter, I think it's because the high for U.S. dollar interest rates, so incentives for the local corporates are less willing to borrow foreign currency dollars. The loan demand are still okay in the overseas. This trend has been happening. I mean, the trend of less willing to lend changed in May, which people are more willing to start up and do the lending. That's why we are confident that the loan will pick up in the second quarter following now.
Hi, we have another question asking what is the trading income and foreign income outlook for the remaining year. First of all, we have to briefly break down our FX investment and other income breakdown. Around our income, one-third is from customer flow. For example, they're either trading there, they're relative trading with E.SUN. The other one-third comes from the swap. The last one-third is from our investment in our mark-to-market. From these three parts, first, for customer flow, we think that we have expected this will continue to go down as we are approaching more customers and the customers still have need to hedge against their activities. We think that will continue to grow. For the portion of swap, we think that will remain stable for the remainder of the year. The last part for our investment and the mark-to-market.
If we think the Fed will stop raising interest rates, I think that will be beneficial for mark-to-market. Thank you.
Okay, investors. Now we seem to have answered all the questions that we have for this session. It's very great to have you join us in the English session press conference, and hope to see you again soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.