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.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS