Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc yesterday launched its first credit card series in Taiwan, with an eye to grabbing a slice of the local market and becoming the nation’s top credit card issuer in the long run.
Rakuten’s credit card issuing subsidiary in Taiwan — Taiwan Rukuten Card Inc (台灣樂天信用卡) — received approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission’s to issue the cards in April last year.
After preparing for more than half a year, the company unveiled a series of credit cards in cooperation with Visa Inc, MasterCard Inc and JCB International Credit Card Co Ltd.
Photo: CNA
“Eyeing the strong market potential in Taiwan, we hope that the total number of credit cards issued will hit the 1 million mark in the next few years,” Taiwan Rakuten Card president Eiji Ishii told a press conference.
The company has also set a long-term goal of becoming the largest credit card issuer in Taiwan, Ishii added.
Ishii said that members of Rakuten Ichiba in Taiwan — Rakuten’s e-commerce platform — reached 3 million at the end of last year and would serve as the main target of its credit cards in the preliminary stage.
Data provided by the commission showed that the total value of credit-card spending in Taiwan reached NT$1.78 trillion in the first 11 months of last year, rising about 8 percent from the same period in 2013, with the full-year amount expected to break the NT$2 trillion mark.
Rakuten is the largest credit card issuer in Japan, with the company receiving an average of 7,000 daily applications since it started issuing credit cards in 2007, company data showed.
Total transaction value using Rakuten credit cards in Japan reached ￥2.6 trillion (US$21.8 billion) in 2013, with the service scope extending from the e-commerce sector to financial services — a business model that the company hopes to duplicate in Taiwan.
In related news, CTBC Bank Co Ltd (中國信託銀行) — the largest credit card issuer in Taiwan — yesterday announced its latest credit card partner — Globalmall Inc (環球購物中心), which has five branches in the nation.
The partnership is the sixth that CTBC Bank has formed with a local department store or shopping mall.
The cooperation with Globalmall follows CTBC Bank’s strategy of issuing co-branded credit cards with department store operators that focus on certain areas of Taiwan, helping the bank to expand its customer base and coverage.
The lender hopes to issue 100,000 credit cards with Globalmall by the end of this year and boost that number to 200,000 within five years in a bid to increase the bank’s transaction fee income.
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