Page 221 - TSMC 2020 Annual Report

and cash equivalents as well as floating-rate securities may generate less interest income than expected. The Company has entered and may in the future enter into interest rate futures to partially hedge the interest rate risk on its fixed income investments. However, these hedges can offset only a small portion of the financial impact from movements in interest rates.
Based on a sensitivity analysis performed on the Company’s fixed income investments at the end of the reporting period, interest rates increase of 100 basis points (1.00%) across all maturities would have decreased the fair value by NT$3,143,569 thousand and NT$3,517,424 thousand for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively. The decreases were composed of NT$3,143,569 thousand decrease and NT$3,516,604 thousand decrease in other comprehensive income for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively, and NT$820 thousand decrease in net income for the year ended December 31, 2019.
The majority of the Company’s short-term debt is floating-rate, hence a rise in interest rates may result in higher interest expense than predicted. The majority of the Company’s long-term debt is fixed-rate and measured at amortized cost and as such, changes in interest rates would not affect the future cash flows and the carrying amount.
Other price risk
The Company is exposed to equity price risk arising from financial assets at FVTOCI.
Assuming a hypothetical decrease of 10% in prices of the equity investments at the end of the reporting period for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, the other comprehensive income would have decreased by NT$446,470 thousand and NT$401,879 thousand, respectively.
d. Credit risk management
Credit risk refers to the risk that a counterparty will default on its contractual obligations resulting in financial losses to the Company. The Company is exposed to credit risks from operating activities, primarily accounts receivable, and from investing activities, primarily deposits, fixed-income investments and other financial instruments with banks. Credit risk is managed separately for business related and financial related exposures. As of the end of the reporting period, the Company’s maximum credit risk exposure is equal to the carrying amount of financial assets.
Business related credit risk
The Company’s accounts receivable are from its customers worldwide. The majority of the Company’s outstanding accounts receivable are not covered by collaterals or guarantees. While the Company has procedures to monitor and manage credit risk exposure on accounts receivable, there is no assurance such procedures will effectively eliminate losses resulting from its credit risk. This risk is heightened during periods when economic conditions worsen.
As of December 31, 2020 and 2019, the Company’s ten largest customers accounted for 79% of accounts receivable in both years. The Company considers the concentration of credit risk for the remaining accounts receivable not material.
Financial credit risk
The Company mitigates its financial credit risk by selecting counterparties with investment grade credit ratings and by limiting the exposure to any individual counterparty. The Company regularly monitors and reviews the limit applied to counterparties and adjusts the limit according to market conditions and the credit standing of the counterparties.
The objective of the Company’s investment policy is to achieve a return that will allow the Company to preserve principal and support liquidity requirements. The policy generally requires securities to be
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