AI Boom Lifts Taiwan Financial-Sector Profits as Experts Flag Middle East, Inflation Risks

The AI investment boom has driven Taiwanese and U.S. stocks higher, boosting banks’ fee and investment income, life insurers’ asset valuations and brokerages’ proprietary-trading profits. But experts warned that a Middle East conflict-driven rise in energy prices and inflation could affect Federal Reserve rate decisions, increasing volatility across equity, bond and currency markets and making earnings less certain.

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission said on June 8 that combined pretax profit across the three financial sectors reached NT$589.066 billion in the first four months of 2026, up 109.2% from a year earlier and the highest ever for the period. Banks earned NT$260.8 billion, insurers NT$215.3 billion, and securities, futures and investment-trust firms NT$112.966 billion. Profit in April alone reached NT$218.08 billion, exceeding NT$200 billion for the first time.