The Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday said that it has approved Jkos Network Co Ltd’s (街口網絡) application for an electronic payment institution license, making the locally developed service the sixth to receive the designation.
With its new license, Jkos Pay (街口) would be able to expand its services and accept deposits of funds, as well as transferring funds between electronic payment accounts held by different individuals, the commission said.
Previously, Jkos Pay services were limited by its third-party payment business license, which was governed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the company was only allowed to serve as an agent in collecting funds and making payments on behalf of its customers.
In the first 11 months of last year, the nation’s five electronic payment services recorded NT$2.05 billion (US$69.3 million) of transactions, with the number of customer accounts reaching 750,000, according to the commission’s statistics.
Including institutions that have been approved to process electronic payments — 24 banks and iPass Corp (一卡通票證) — total transactions during the same period last year were NT$18.85 billion across 1.82 million customer accounts, the commission said.
The five other institutions with electronic payment licenses are AllPay Financial Information Service Co Ltd (歐付寶), Gama Pay Co Ltd (橘子支), Pay2Go Technology Corp (智付寶), PChome InterPay Inc (國際連) and ezPay Taiwan Co Ltd (台灣電子支付).
Jkos Network has NT$510 million in paid-in capital and the company would be required to launch expanded services under its new business license within the next six months, the commission said.
Jkos Network was launched in October 2015 and its average number monthly transactions has grown to almost 2 million, while the company’s app has been downloaded 600,000 times, the commission said.
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