Cash advance cards are losing importance in the local financial market, with outstanding debt dropping to a new low last year, Financial Supervisory Commission’s (FSC) data showed.
By the end of last year, 384,771 valid cash advance cards had been issued by 16 local banks, with combined outstanding loans falling 7.97 percent to NT$17.35 billion (US$564 million), from NT$18.85 billion at the end of 2017, the lowest level since the commission started collecting the data in 2004.
The non-performing loans (NPL) ratio for the cards and bad loans written off continued to decline last year to 0.885 percent and NT$403.76 million respectively, the data showed.
In comparison, 29.57 million valid credit cards had been issued by 34 banks and total card spending reached NT$242.18 billion by the end of last year, the data showed.
The number of valid credit cards is 76 times that of cash advance cards, so cash-advance cards have clearly lost importance, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Wang Li-chun (王立群) told the Taipei Times on Feb. 1.
RESTRICTIONS
The cash card business has seen a continued decline since the commission tightened regulations in 2005, identifying the cards as high-risk, Wang said, adding that no bank has actively offered new cash cards or promoted such services since then.
The cash card loan balance reached a peak of NT$298.4 billion by the end of 2005, but had fallen to less than one-17th of that peak by the end of last year, Wang said.
The number of cash card issuers also fell from 31 in 2005 to 16 last year, he added.
KGI Bank (凱基銀行), which introduced the nation’s first cash card, “George & Mary,” in 1999, holds 80 percent of the market, followed by Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) and CTBC Bank (中信銀行), the data showed.
CREDIT
KGI said it does not promote its cash cards anymore, unless clients ask about it.
“Clients still have the need for small loans and cash for emergencies, but we now provide revolving credit to replace cash cards,” the bank said, adding that the maximum credit amount is NT$1 million.
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) and CTBC Bank offer similar revolving credit products.
UNCONVINCING: The US Congress questioned whether the company’s Chinese owners pose a national security risk and how the app might influence young users TikTok chief executive officer Shou Chew (周受資), confronted with an unforgiving, distrustful US Congress, tried to give answers in his testimony on Thursday that avoided offending either the US government or China. However, his evasiveness left Congress unsatisfied, with representatives hungrier than ever to punish TikTok for ties to its parent company ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), based in Beijing. He did not bring his company any closer to a resolution. Politically, TikTok is in a tougher spot. Its executives had been discussing divesting from ByteDance to resolve US national security concerns, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. However, China this week said
Sanofi SA’s drug Dupixent succeeded in a late-stage trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), raising the odds that the blockbuster would be the first biologic medicine cleared to treat the lung disorder. Dupixent, which is already prescribed for asthma and some skin conditions, showed a 30 percent reduction in the rate at which patients’ COPD worsened compared with those who received a placebo during the stage-three Boreas trial, the company said in a statement yesterday. The positive data could herald a new era of cutting-edge treatments for the life-threatening respiratory affliction and provide another major boost in demand for the French
SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT: The international trade group said the sector would recover from a slump, with spending expected to rise 4.2 percent to US$24.9 billion Taiwan is to retain its position as the top spender on semiconductor front-end equipment and facilities next year, with spending expected to increase 4.2 percent year-on-year to US$24.9 billion, international trade group SEMI said yesterday. The spending forecast matches an expected recovery in global semiconductor equipment and facilities investment next year, it said. International equipment spending is to return to growth next year, SEMI said in a report, forecasting 21 percent growth to US$92 billion. The expansion would manly be driven by robust demand for semiconductors in the automotive and high-performance computing segments, the association said. “This quarter’s SEMI World Fab Forecast update
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry faces multiple challenges, from the need to conduct further research into forward-looking technologies to a shortage of talent, an industry executive said on Wednesday. Advancing forward-looking semiconductor research and nurturing talent require long-term joint efforts by the industry, government and academia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) corporate research director Marvin Chang (張孟凡) said. Chang outlined the challenges in a speech at a semiconductor forum organized by the National Science and Technology Council (NTSC) in Hsinchu. Noting that manufacturers have been deploying fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) technology for more than a decade to develop advanced microprocessors, Chang said nanosheet is
RSS