The nation’s 38 credit-card issuers averaged a 0.91 percent ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) as of the end of January, 0.05 percentage points down month-on-month, the Financial Supervisory Commission’s latest statistics showed yesterday.
In January, the nation’s 18.9 million active cardholders had a total of NT$203.8 billion (US$6.4 billion) in revolving credit, down from NT$208.1 billion in the previous month, Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), deputy director of the commission’s banking bureau, told a media briefing.
Credit card spending, however, declined by NT$11.7 billion month-on-month to NT$123.3 billion in January “as many department stores ended their promotional sales in December,” Lin said.
Amid the nation’s 38 card issuers, Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐商銀) still held the highest bad-loan ratio of 6.89 percent, which is expected to drop to less than 3 percent after its bad loans are written off.
The NPL ratio of cash card lending also declined to 2.159 percent in January, down 0.112 percentage points from the previous month, the data found.
Among the nation’s 19 cash card issuers, outstanding unsecured loans totaled NT$64.1 billion in January, NT$1.2 billion down from the previous month, the data showed.
In separate news, the commission yesterday reiterated its plan to soon integrate a property transaction and pricing information platform under the Joint Credit Information Center, which will provide a reference to domestic banks’ appraisals of property collateral when granting mortgages, the commission’s chief secretary Shiau Chang-ruey (蕭長瑞) told yesterday’s media briefing.
To facilitate the platform, the center will soon collect data from local banks, private property associations and courts, which often organize property auctions, Shiau said.
The platform, however, will not be open to the general public, he said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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