Citibank Taiwan Ltd (台灣花旗) has revamped its three credit cards, adding higher reward rates and an improved digital banking app in a bid to attract customers before an expected rebound in credit card spending next year.
The bank has raised the cashback rate of the Citi Cash Back Plus Card to 2 percent on all purchases, domestic and overseas, even insurance premium payments, Citibank told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The revamped card offers a higher cashback rate and simpler rules than the previous rate of 0.5 percent on regular purchases, and 1.5 percent on dining, refueling and supermarket spending, as Citibank hopes to encourage people to use the card for all purchases, it said.
Photo: Allen Wu, Taipei Times
As people are embracing mobile payment options, the bank is offering a special cashback rate of 10 percent for new clients who connect their Citi Cash Back Plus Card to one of the 10 most popular electronic wallets in Taiwan, such as Apple Pay, Line Pay Money or Jko Pay (街口支付), within three months of activating the card, it said.
Given that the COVID-19 pandemic has mostly halted international travel, the bank would allow holders of the Citi PremierMiles Card to redeem miles on domestic travel programs, it said, adding that people do not need to worry about miles expiring because they last a lifetime at Citi.
Holders of the Citi Prestige Card can also transfer airport delivery services to domestic travel programs due to the pandemic, it said.
The bank has made the digital banking app more intuitive after receiving complaints from consumers and would continue to improve the app to optimize its digital services, it said.
Credit card spending slowed this year, the bank said, as people canceled overseas travel plans amid the pandemic and did not spend as much on domestic travel as they spend on international travel, Citibank Taiwan country business manager Muge Yuzuak told the Taipei Times at the news conference.
Yuzuak said that she expects spending momentum to remain stable in the first half of next year and to stage a rally in the second half.
“It takes time for a recovery. The virus is unlikely to stop spreading soon, but we expect to have a different story by the end of next year,” Yuzuak said.
Citibank Taiwan, with a total of 2.14 million activated cards, ranks sixth among all of the banks in Taiwan and first among foreign banks, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed.
Asked whether the bank was seeking to improve its ranking, Yuzuak said that the bank concentrates on quality instead of quantity.
Citi aims to build a long-term relationship with customers, she said, adding that customers who feel good about its services would stick with Citi.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
POLICY REVERSAL: The decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China came after years of tightening controls and has drawn objections among some Republicans US House Republicans are calling for arms-sale-style congressional oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports as US President Donald Trump’s administration moves to approve licenses for Nvidia Corp to ship its H200 processor to China. US Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which oversees export controls, on Friday introduced a bill dubbed the AI Overwatch Act that would require the US Congress to be notified of AI chips sales to adversaries. Any processors equal to or higher in capabilities than Nvidia’s H20 would be subject to oversight, the draft bill says. Lawmakers would have
RSS