Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), the banking arm of SinoPac Financial Holding Co (永豐金控), yesterday launched mobile debit and credit card services, making it the first lender in Taiwan to tap the emerging mobile payment market.
The new service, currently limited to 1,000 customers, allows them to pay for goods and services via their smartphones and tablets as mobile devices gain popularity.
“Bank SinoPac is pleased to lead peers in offering the service” that is already in use in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Australia and South Korea, Bank Sinopac’s president Tina Chiang (江威娜) told a media briefing.
The new business may not be a key earnings driver at this point due to regulatory constraints, among other things, but is a trend that no financial institute can afford to ignore, Chiang said.
Global mobile business transactions are expected to jump by a compound rate of 35 percent every year to 2017, suggesting ample payment opportunity for lenders, Chiang said.
At present, the Financial Supervisory Commission caps credit card consumption over mobile devices at NT$50,000 (US$1,665) and payments over mobile debit cards at NT$10,000. The regulator also imposes a quota of 1,000 customers for banks interested in offering mobile payment services.
A survey by Bank SinoPac shows 62 percent of its customers are willing to use the new services on expectations of better speed and convenience.
Yet, 38 percent expressed concerns over transaction safety and 32 percent over complicated procedures, the survey showed.
Other banks including Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), EnTie Commercial Bank (安泰銀行) and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) are expected to unveil their mobile payment services soon.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
RSS