There were 7.28 million digital savings accounts in Taiwan as of the end of March, up 12.7 percent from a quarter earlier, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed on Tuesday.
Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) retained top spot with 2.49 million accounts for its Richart online service, up 5.5 percent from 2.36 million at the end of last year, the data showed.
Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) was second with 1.12 million accounts, up 15.8 percent from a quarter earlier, the data showed.
Photo courtesy of Line Pay
Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) was third with 791,000 accounts, up 19 percent from three months earlier, while First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) was fourth with 550,000 accounts, but had the steepest gain of 22 percent quarter-on-quarter.
O-Bank (王道商業銀行), which was third in the third quarter last year with 447,000 accounts, fell to fifth last quarter with 457,000 accounts, rising only 1.1 percent quarter-on-quarter.
The quick overall rise in accounts might be due to more banks launching such services and offering better interest rates to cultivate a customer base that favors online services over visiting brick-and-mortar branches.
Most banks offer interest rates of more than 1 percent on digital savings accounts, compared with interest rates for demand deposit accounts at physical banks of 0.1 to 0.2 percent.
First Commercial Bank’s interest rate for its digital saving accounts is 1.2 percent, the same as Taishin International Bank, the data showed.
Rakuten International Commercial Bank Co (樂天國際商銀), Taiwan’s first Web-only bank, which started business in January, reported 36,000 accounts, while Line Bank Taiwan Ltd (連線商業銀行), which launched on Thursday last week, reported 42,974 accounts as of Tuesday, the commission said.
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