DBS Bank Taiwan yesterday launched a new credit card targeting young Taiwanese, as it seeks to become the nation’s second-largest foreign credit card issuer.
The “Live Fresh” cards provide users with cash rebates of 2.5 percent for overseas purchases and 1.2 percent for domestic transactions, the Singaporean lender said.
“DBS assigns great importance to the credit card business and the new cards demonstrate our seriousness about it,” DBS Bank Taiwan managing director Lim Him-chuan (林鑫川) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
The move comes slightly more than a month after the bank released its DBS Flying World cards, which offer generous mileage benefits.
The Live Fresh cards aim to win over customers aged up to 35, who might soon become the dominant group of consumers, said Calvin Lin (林群凱), executive director of cards and unsecured loans.
The card features designs by Singaporean sneaker artist and street-wear designer Mark Ong (王衛國).
The collaboration might help boost the card’s appeal, as Ong’s designs are so popular that even Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) has praised him as a brave young celebrity who is willing to part with tradition to pursue his dreams, the lender said.
As of last month, DBS Taiwan was the third-largest foreign credit card issuer after Citibank Taiwan and HSBC Bank Taiwan, data on the Financial Supervisory Commission’s Web site showed.
“We aim to expand our market share and win new customers through innovative marketing strategies and competitive propositions,” Lin said.
The bank has issued 60,000 travel cards since their release in the middle of last month, and has a long list of applicants, he said.
DBS Taiwan expects the Live Fresh cards to make a similar splash, Lin said.
New cardholders could receive cash rebates of up to 8.88 percent, with a monthly cap of NT$500, through the end of October, he said.
Cardholders would also receive a 10 percent discount on transactions at OK Mini, vending machines at the convenience store chain OK Mart, he said.
The lender encourages potential customers to apply for DBS credit cards online, he said, adding that successful applicants could also receive NT$50 cash rebates for shopping at 7-Eleven convenience stores.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS