With a near-term aim to upgrade itself into a local banking subsidiary, the Taiwanese arm of ANZ will face an uphill battle competing with domestic rivals."Mortgage loan and credit card businesses are dominated by the top domestic banks, which small rivals such as ANZ Taiwan will have a hard time grabbing shares from," says Shen Chung-hua, a finance professor at National Taiwan University.Corporate lending, especially to those Taiwanese businesses branching out into China, is the only segment where international lenders can leverage their multinational banking platforms to land deals, says the professor. But this requires sound credit-risk management to prevent defaulting, especially when it comes to loans to small- and medium-sized enterprises.SMEs make up more than 90 per cent of the export-oriented Taiwanese economy.ANZ has a wholly owned banking business in Taiwan, one purchased from Royal Bank of Scotland in late 2009 (and which has also undergone a second change of name in only a few years). The Taiwan business is the largest of the banking operations ANZ acquired from RBS and - for followers of ANZ outside of Taiwan - a business that is obscure.  In February, ANZ Taiwan's chief executive officer, Terry King, announced, that the bank would apply to set up a subsidiary later in the year. This followed the rebranding of the business the previous April.King also vowed to more than double the bank's earnings before interest and tax to NT$2 billion (A$65 million) this year. This growth was to be driven by mortgage and corporate loans.However, the bank expects growth from its niche in credit card businesses to flatten out this year, because of tightened regulations around revolving interest rates, according to a Taipei Times report.But, ANZ expects to double its home loans this year, from NT$7.6 billion (A$260 million) last year. This represents a 0.1 per cent market share. With NT$177.6 billion in assets, ANZ Taiwan reported NT$524 million in pre-tax income in the first six months of this year, up from a before-tax loss of NT$47 million from the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Commission.The bank began to turn a profit in June last year and has stayed in the black since, the FSC data shows.ANZ currently operates 18 outlets in major cities in Taiwan, with a total of 1800 staff, and is slated to open another 20 branches by 2013.But, compared to its four other big foreign rivals, the bank's earnings are lagging behind. DBS Taiwan has earnings of NT$757 million, HSBC Taiwan has NT$2 billion, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) Taiwan has NT$4.1 billion and Citibank Taiwan earned NT$8.1 billion in pre-tax income during the same period of time. In China, ANZ Group also plans to expand fast, after having operated four branches - in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing - the group's North East Asia, Europe & America CEO, Gilles Plante, said. Speaking in Taipei last April, Plante vowed to raise revenues generated from the greater China region to account for 50 to 60 per cent of the group's total