Citibank NA (花旗銀行) yesterday launched a new platinum card in cooperation with New York Life Insurance Taiwan Corp (紐約人壽), offering a cash rebate of up to 1.5 percent to policyholders who use the card to pay their premiums.
“This will be the most preferential cash rebate in the market,” said Victor Kuan (管國霖), country business manager of consumer banking at Citibank in Taiwan.
New cardholders who receive approval before Sept. 30 can enjoy a 1.5 percent cash rebate in the first year and a 1.1 cash rebate after the promotional period, the bank said.
Cardholders can also use it to pay for investment-linked insurance products — a privilege that no other domestic card offers, Citibank said.
The co-branded card also rewards cardholders with a bonus point for every NT$30 they spend, with lifetime validity. Additionally, every 1,000 bonus points can be exchange for an NT$100 cash rebate, the bank said.
Pradeep Pant, director of the bank’s card business, said that the number of policyholders using credit cards to pay their insurance premium grew 4.5 times between 2004 and 2006.
Pant was upbeat about the partnership with New York Life, saying the insurer’s excellent “customer services and satisfaction” were what attracted the bank to it.
New York Life Taiwan president and CEO Dan Ting (鄭林經) was also optimistic about the partnership.
He estimated that the card could be an incentive and help the insurer attract “50,000 new policyholders” in the second half of this year.
The insurer, founded in 1992 in Taiwan, has more than 300,000 policyholders, 50,000 of whom use credit cards to pay premiums, said Johnny Wong (黃振國), the insurer’s chief marketing officer.
Wong said he believes the company’s 50,000 policyholders would be very interested in applying for the new co-branded card.
Kuan also expressed hope that the bank could maximize its local market share by issuing more co-branded cards in the next few months, but declined to elaborate on the bank’s plans.
“We could see a 20 to 30 percent growth this year in new cards,” he said.
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