Credit card spending hit a record NT$407.9 billion (US$13.2 billion) in July given a rise in their use for tax and travel payments, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said on Thursday.
The figure rose 54.27 percent from NT$264.4 billion the previous month and was 21.62 percent higher than NT$335.4 billion a year earlier, the commission said.
Taiwanese are being attracted back to credit card spending by incentives and rewards such as installment plans, points or cash-back rewards, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) said.
Taipei Times file photo
About NT$136.4 billion in taxes were paid by credit card in July, an increase of NT$27.5 billion from a year earlier, Lin said.
Summer vacations and declining COVID-19 infections spurred domestic travel in July, boosting credit card spending for the month, he said.
CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) led its local peers with credit card spending of NT$86 billion, followed by E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) with NT$66 billion and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) with NT$61 billion, the commission’s data showed.
CTBC Bank issued 115,000 new credit cards in July, the highest number of all local banks, the commission said.
From Jan. 1 to July 31, total credit card spending in Taiwan rose 10 percent year-on-year to NT$1.95 trillion, the highest for the same period over the past five years, the data showed.
“If the momentum continues in following months, this year’s credit card spending might surpass the record of NT$3.22 trillion set in 2019,” Lin said.
As of July, Taiwan had 54.17 million credit cards in circulation issued by 33 financial institutions, up from 53.9 million in June.
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