Taiwan's cash card bad-debt ratio climbed to a new high last month as the total loan balance shrank after the consumer credit abuse storm, according to data released by the Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday.
The average non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of cash cards rose to 7.82 percent last month, up 0.04 percentage points from July or 6.22 percentage points from a year ago, the data showed.
Meanwhile, the number of cash cards in use dropped 2.72 percent month-on-month, or 33.51 percent year-on-year, to 2.5 million. Loans for the cards fell 3.74 percent month-on-month, or 31.59 percent year-on-year, to NT$213.5 billion (US$65 million).
Over half of the nation's 28 cash card issuers saw their NPL ratio exceed the government-mandated limit of 3 percent, including the second-largest issuer, Taishin International Bank (
Meanwhile, the credit card NPL ratio dropped 0.13 percent month-on-month to 2.79 percent last month.
The number of cards in circulation continued to fall to 39.9 million, down 1.04 month-on-month, or 12.57 percent year-on-year, and the amount of evolving credit declined to NT$387.3 billion, down 3.94 percent from a month ago, or 20.14 percent from a year ago, the data showed.
Meanwhile, the average bad loan ratio of 43 local banks remained unchanged at 2.41 percent last month, while the coverage ratio rose to 47.11 percent from 46.45 percent in July.
For the first eight months of this year, 17 banks reported losses, with Jih Sun International Bank (
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