Credit card spending grew 11 percent year-on-year to NT$2.93 trillion (US$97.33 billion) for the first 11 months of last year and is expected to surpass NT$3 trillion for the whole of last year, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
The rise in credit card spending could be attributed to banks’ reward programs, more conventional stores and transportation systems accepting cards, and the popularity of mobile payment tools, the commission said.
Among the nation’s 34 banks, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) was first in terms of card payments in November last year, with a total of NT$41.76 billion, followed by CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行, NT$38.5 billion) and E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行, NT$38.27 billion), FSC data showed.
Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣銀行) was first among foreign banks in terms of credit card spending, with NT$19.18 billion, followed by HSBC Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀, NT$5.81 billion), DBS Bank Taiwan (星展銀行, NT$3.38 billion) and Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打台灣銀行, NT$3.15 billion), the data showed.
Banks in Taiwan issued a combined 744,442 cards, with the top three issuers being E.Sun Bank, Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) and Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), which between them issued more than 100,000 cards, the data showed.
CTBC Bank, the banking arm of CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), remained first in terms of the number of cards in circulation as of the end of November with 6.83 million, followed by Cathay United (6.74 million) and E.Sun (5.73 million), the data showed.
The number of people using electronic payments totaled 6.53 million, up 59 percent from a year earlier, while spending increased 38 percent to NT$3.94 billion, the data showed.
Line Pay Money, the electronic payment service offered by LINE Biz+ Taiwan Ltd (連加網路) and iPass Corp (一卡通票證), was first in terms of number of users at 1.95 million, while Jkopay Co (街口電子支付) was first in terms of total payments at NT$1.38 billion, the data showed.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained