Citibank joins effort to provide financial education

As part of its global NT$6.6 billion package, Citibank Taiwan (花旗銀行) yesterday donated NT$3.5 million to the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (婦女救援基金會) in a bid to help teenage girls cultivate appropriate attitudes toward money and wealth management.

According to the foundation's survey, teenage girls aged between 15 and 18 are becoming increasingly materialistic, with 55 percent of respondents choosing money as the most important factor in their lives, while only 40.5 percent chose family attachments. Sixty-one percent chose bosom friends, while 57 percent chose school grades.

Over 90 percent of the teenage girls owned cellular phones, while 67 percent had personal computers, both of which had been paid for primarily by the girls' parents.

The survey also found that 32 girl teenagers out of a total of 420 respondents from Taipei's Ximending district had received scooters as gifts from their peers -- a sign that teenage consumers may spend more than expected.

As credit-card holders, most teenage girls still can't afford to pay their own bills, since 81 percent of parents will pay for their outstanding debts, the survey said.

As much as 90 percent of teenage cardholders, therefore, are unaware of the high interest payments accrued by revolving credit balance, the survey concluded.

Chan Tze-ching (陳子政), head of Citibank Taiwan, said at a ceremony yesterday that the bank will not only financially aid the campaign to promote wealth-management values among teenage girls, but will also send volunteers to talk to high school girls about business education.

Taiwan's upscale credit-card market grew steadily last year. Total credit-card transactions rose to a record NT$999 billion last year, up 14 percent from NT$874 billion in 2002, according to statistics provided by the Bureau of Monetary Affairs.

Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), Taiwan's largest credit card issuer, Citigroup, the biggest foreign card issuer, and other lenders are expanding their consumer banking and fee-based businesses to improve profits amid intensifying competition and falling interest rates in corporate lending in Taiwan.