Applications to defer credit card payments last month plunged 90 percent from June, suggesting a tapering of loan demand, Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行) said yesterday, citing its own statistics.
Mega International attributed the rapid decline to a quick recovery in consumer activity after the public health situation stabilized in late July following a domestic outbreak of COVID-19 in May, allowing most businesses to resume operations.
The Financial Supervisory Commission in May asked domestic banks to provide interest-free moratoriums of three to six months to customers with credit card and loan payments due in June, Mega International said.
The move was intended to help people and companies hit hard by a level 3 COVID-19 alert that virtually halted all consumer activity except for purchases of daily necessities, the bank said.
Deferral applications in June surged 15-fold from May, but they subsided after the government on July 27 lowered the alert to level 2.
The slump in deferral applications shows that cash needs have eased further, the bank said, adding that its latest data on the nation’s inflationary gauge and tax revenue supported its observation.
The consumer price index grew 2.63 percent year-on-year last month, while tax revenue rose 13.1 percent to NT$302 billion (US$10.82 billion) as demand picked up, bolstering business and sales tax revenue, the bank said.
Mega International expects business to continue to improve, as major department stores are set to launch anniversary sale promotions and the government’s Quintuple Stimulus Voucher program would encourage spending.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
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A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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