The number of digital savings accounts totaled 2.82 million as of the end of September, a surge of 161 percent from 1.08 million a year earlier, boosted by higher interest rates at banks and upgrades to their online services, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed.
Most banks offer interest rates higher than 1 percent for digital savings accounts, which is tempting given that interest rates for demand deposits offered by conventional banking services hover between 0.1 and 0.2 percent, a commission official surnamed Hung (洪) said by telephone yesterday.
Banks are willing to offer higher interest rates for virtual accounts, as they have lower costs, requiring no branches or employees, while they also want to cultivate a strong consumer base for online services, Hung said.
People are encouraged to use digital savings accounts, as banks add more functionality to their online platforms, such as free transfers, bill payments and wealth management, he said.
National ID card holders aged seven or above and foreign residents 20 or older are allowed to open digital savings accounts after the commission eased rules last month.
As a result, the number of digital savings accounts is expected to continue growing this month and reach 3 million this year, Hung said.
With the three new Web-only banks to launch operations in the first half of next year, the number of virtual accounts are expected to increase further, he said.
Local banks require applicants to submit a photograph of their ID cards to prove their identity, but the commission is mulling a system that allows banks to collaborate with telecoms to skip this step, Hung said.
“As consumers need to use two forms of identification — such as their national ID and National Health Insurance cards — when registering a mobile number, we think telecoms could help banks with authenticating identification,” he said.
The commission received this proposal from the Bankers’ Association of the Republic of China (銀行公會) and would likely approve it when banks prove that their information processing system safe and effective, he said.
There are three types of digital savings account, Hung said.
The first is open to new clients at a bank, but requires a Citizen Digital Certificate, the second is only available to people who already have a savings account with the bank, and the third requires no Citizen Digital Certificate and anyone with a credit card at the banks can apply, but it has the most restrictions on fund transfers, Hung said.
Type 3 is the most popular, with 1.1 million accounts, while type 1 has 912,527 and type 2 810,924, he said, citing FSC data.
The number of type 1 accounts has shown the fastest rate of growth, increasing 3.3 times as of the end of September from a year earlier, the data showed.
Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) ranked first for the number of digital accounts, having 1.57 million at its Richart online service, followed by O-Bank (王道商業銀行, 385,151 accounts), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行, 379,905), Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行, 117,394) and Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行, 79,471), the data showed.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”