With more people willing to use credit cards, plastics payments hit a record high for August, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
Consumers spent NT$244.7 billion (US$7.98 million) in August, up 3.99 percent monthly and 7.99 percent from the same period last year, the commission said.
With the local economy showing signs of recovery, credit card spending has continued to increase, it said.
As of the end of August, the number of valid credit cards issued by the 34 authorized institutions totaled 28.97 million, while the number of cards in circulation reached 43.25 million, the commission said.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中國信託) issued 87,221 cards in August, taking the top spot due to the strong growth of its Line Pay cards and the issuance of new cobranded cards with Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) and Showtime Cinemas (秀泰影城), the commission said.
Meanwhile, electronic payments rose 19.39 percent from a month earlier to NT$2.78 billion, while the number of users grew to 2.83 million, a 3.28 percent monthly increase, it said.
Among the 26 institutions that offer electronic payments, E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) reached 771,201 users and transactions hit NT$1.46 million, putting the company ahead of its peers in both categories, the commission said.
EasyCard Corp (悠遊卡) offers the largest electronic stored-value card, and as of August, the number of EasyCards circulating totaled 67.04 million, accounting for 64 percent of the nation’s 103.33 million electronic stored-value cards, the commission said.
Other electronic stored-value cards include iPass (一卡通), iCash (愛金卡) and HappyCash (遠鑫卡).
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