Page 249 - TSMC 2022 Annual Report

their fair value adversely affected due to a rise in interest rates. At the same time, if interest rates fall, cash 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 derivatives to partially hedge the interest rate risk on its fixed income investments and anticipated debt issuance. However, these hedges can offset only a limited 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 Company’s other comprehensive income by NT$3,831,326 thousand and NT$3,767,071 thousand for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively.
All of the Company’s short-term debt is floating-rate, hence a rise in interest rates may result in higher interest expense than expected. 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 future cash flows or 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, 2022 and 2021, the other comprehensive income would have decreased by NT$631,530 thousand and NT$595,766 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, 2022 and 2021, the Company’s ten largest customers accounted for 82% and 79% of accounts receivable, respectively. 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 investment grade and limits the amount of credit exposure to any one issuer. The Company assesses whether there has been a significant increase in credit risk in the invested securities since initial
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