Credit card spending in the nation rose 17.32 percent year-on-year in January, bolstered by holiday purchases and insurance bill payments, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed.
Although many banks have described the credit card business as “a saturated market,” card spending, the number of valid cards issued and the number of cards in circulation all increased in January from a year earlier, the data showed.
Card spending totaled NT$291.33 billion (US$9.43 billion) in January, which was the third-highest monthly tally after NT$298.2 billion in June last year and NT$295.1 billion in June 2017, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Sherri Chuang (莊琇媛) told a news conference on Thursday.
Among the nation’s 34 banks, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) ranked first in terms of card payments, with a total of NT$54.22 billion, followed by CTBC Bank’s (中信銀行) NT$45.29 billion and E.Sun Commercial Bank’s (玉山銀行) NT$34.19 billion, the data showed.
Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣銀行) was the foreign bank that issued the most cards in January, with card spending totalling NT$20.6 billion, the data showed.
Banks in Taiwan issued 19,000 cards on average in January, but E.Sun Bank and Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) each issued more than 100,000 cards, fueled by their new marketing programs, Chuang said.
The electronic payment industry is also booming, with the number of users, the amount of spending and the amount of transfers all increasing in January.
The number of e-payment users totaled 4.48 million, up 4.19 percent from December, while spending increased 3.71 percent to NT$3.14 billion, the commission said.
Line Pay, which launched its e-payment service in September last year, ranked first, with 1.09 million users in January, followed by AllPay Financial Information Service Co’s (歐付寶) 797,036 and Jkopay Co’s (街口電子支付) 696,664, it said.
However, Jkopay led its peers in terms of consumer spending, at NT$564.86 million, the data showed.
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