Bank loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for last year rose by NT$274.4 billion (US$8.82 billion) to NT$5.73 trillion, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
The annual increase exceeded the regulator’s target of NT$240 billion by 14.33 percent, the commission said.
In December alone, SME loans jumped by NT$127.3 billion, marking the highest monthly gain since 2011, thanks to an NT$80 billion syndicated loan organized by 26 local banks to fund Micron Technology Inc’s purchase of the remaining shares of Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) that it did not own through its local subsidiary, Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), the commission said.
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), E. Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) and Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) recorded the largest expansions, with each adding about NT$30 billion to their SME loanbook for the whole of last year, the commission said.
In related news, credit-card spending last year rose 8 percent annually to a record-high NT$2.4 trillion, commission statistics showed.
Cathay United Bank Co (國泰世華銀行) was the top card issuer, garnering NT$38.96 billion in spending, followed by CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) at NT$27.1 billion.
The two banks are also among the seven that are slated to be the first to offer Apple Pay before the end of this quarter, the commission said.
“We are not expecting significant jumps in new credit-card applications apart from banks’ promotional campaigns to market the US firm’s mobile payment service, because existing cards may be used with Apple Pay,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lu Hui-jung (呂蕙容) said at a news conference.
As of the end of last year, the number of credit cards in circulation in Taiwan totaled 40.7 million, while the revolving balance amounted to NT$109.1 billion, data from the commission showed.
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