Taiwan's Credit-Card Spending Predicted to Hit Another Record High This Year

Taiwan's credit-card spending amounted to NT$151.6 billion (US$5.053 billion) in March and NT$471.3 billion (US$15.71 billion) in the first quarter for an annual growth of 4.7%, according to statistics released by the Banking Bureau of the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).

An FSC official forecasts that the island's credit-card spending this year will likely hit a record high of over NT$2 trillion (US$66.67 billion) if stable growth continues in the second half.

CTBC Bank and Cathay United Bank, two of Taiwan's leading credit-card issuers, were almost neck-and-neck in the amount of spending using their cards in March, with the former racking up spending of NT$23.6 billion (US$786.67 million) and the latter recording NT$22.8 billion (US$760 million).

At the end of March Cathay had a total of 4.43 million credit cards in circulation, with 3.13 million of them being valid. This was behind CTBC by half a million to one million cards. To catch up, Cathay has introduced affinity cards together with prominent enterprises; for instance it recently cooperated with Costco in issuing affinity cards for Costco shoppers.

Taiwan's credit-card issuers had a total of 36.3 million cards in circulation in May, for year-on-year rise of 1.97 million. Of that total, 23.13 million cards were regarded valid--meaning that they had been used in the past six months--an increase of 1.38 million cards over May last year. However, the amount of outstanding revolving credit was down by NT$10.4 billion (US$346.67 million), to NT$114.8 billion (US$3.83 billion).

Last year Taiwan's credit-card spending hit a record high of NT$1.91 trillion (US$63.67 billion), up 8.53% from 2012, and this year's spending is forecast to post another record of more than NT$2 trillion (US$66.67 billion). (JL)