Outstanding credit and cash card bad loans could be a much bigger problem than anticipated, as the average debt of cardholders is nearly four times that of official estimates, according to figures released by domestic banks last week.
Each consumer who has sought help through the recently established debt-negotiation mechanism for repayment solutions owes about NT$1.9 million (US$58,640), said Charles Lo (
That is equivalent to 62 times the amount of the average debtor's monthly wage of about NT$30,000, Lo said.
ESTIMATES LOWER
The figure is also four times official estimates.
The Financial Supervisory Commission said last week that the bad debt of each cardholder had been estimated at about NT$500,000. It said more than 500,000 people have defaulted on their unsecured, credit or cash card loans for more than three months.
Total non-performing loans were approximately NT$260 billion, up from an estimated NT$240 billion three months ago, the commission said.
The extent of the consumer debt problem began triggering alarms around the middle of last year, and lenders moved to tighten credit. The problem snowballed as a large number of debtors could no longer borrow money to pay off their card debts.
MECHANISM
To help cardholders, the Bankers Association (
As of last week, 31,395 applications had been accepted and approximately 10,000 cases had been resolved, which could represent debts amounting to NT$25.4 billion, Lo said.
In an attempt to help resolve the bad debt problem as soon as possible, the commission said yesterday that it will try to give assistance in areas such as facilitating debt negotiations and finding jobs for cardholders who want to pay off their debts but don't have the resources.
MORE PROMOTION
Banks should promote the debt-negotiation mechanism as hard as they have been promoting their credit or debit cards, the commission said. It also urged the borrowers to use the system to resolve their debt problems.
The commission will form a task force to inspect banks to ensure they are using the negotiation mechanism, it said.
also see story:
Editorial: Why cards are not killers
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained