Fubon Commercial Bank (
As the 33rd bank to move into the local cash-advance business, Fubon will be the first cash-advance card issuer that waives the NT$100 transaction fee for the first year.
Cash-advance cards allow cardholders to borrow money without collateral through ATMs. The business began in 1999 when Cosmos Bank Taiwan (
"We're targeting white-collar workers aged between 25 and 40 who are capable of repaying loans," said former TaipeiBank CEO Jesse Ding (
Fubon had previously refused to enter the cash-advance market, but Ding yesterday said the bank changed its mind on the grounds that the market had greatly matured in terms of reducing credit risk.
Estimating that the size of the cash-advance market would reach between NT$300 billion and NT$400 billion per year, Fubon president James Wu (吳均龐) said the banks are aiming to take up a sizable share of the market in the near future.
"The marketplace is packed with too many smaller rivals, whom we are confident of outperforming," Wu said.
He declined to offer a prediction for the banks' cash-advance card's first year in circulation.
However, a bank manager who asked to remain anonymous said the lender shouldn't have a problem issuing between 100,000 and 200,000 cards by the end of the year.
Wu said the banks would offer loans up to NT$300,000, which could be raised to NT$800,000 upon application, to cash-advance cardholders.
A Fubon survey showed each cardholder on average pays NT$3,600 per year to banks on three transactions a month.
Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), a local arm of Standard and Poor's, warned last year that increased availability and use of credit and cash-advance cards may increase the risk of bad loans over the next two years.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six