The nation’s 38 credit-card issuers averaged a 0.91 percent ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) as of the end of January, 0.05 percentage points down month-on-month, the Financial Supervisory Commission’s latest statistics showed yesterday.
In January, the nation’s 18.9 million active cardholders had a total of NT$203.8 billion (US$6.4 billion) in revolving credit, down from NT$208.1 billion in the previous month, Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), deputy director of the commission’s banking bureau, told a media briefing.
Credit card spending, however, declined by NT$11.7 billion month-on-month to NT$123.3 billion in January “as many department stores ended their promotional sales in December,” Lin said.
Amid the nation’s 38 card issuers, Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐商銀) still held the highest bad-loan ratio of 6.89 percent, which is expected to drop to less than 3 percent after its bad loans are written off.
The NPL ratio of cash card lending also declined to 2.159 percent in January, down 0.112 percentage points from the previous month, the data found.
Among the nation’s 19 cash card issuers, outstanding unsecured loans totaled NT$64.1 billion in January, NT$1.2 billion down from the previous month, the data showed.
In separate news, the commission yesterday reiterated its plan to soon integrate a property transaction and pricing information platform under the Joint Credit Information Center, which will provide a reference to domestic banks’ appraisals of property collateral when granting mortgages, the commission’s chief secretary Shiau Chang-ruey (蕭長瑞) told yesterday’s media briefing.
To facilitate the platform, the center will soon collect data from local banks, private property associations and courts, which often organize property auctions, Shiau said.
The platform, however, will not be open to the general public, he said.
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