E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) and ezTravel Co (易遊網) yesterday launched a cobranded credit card on expectations that credit card spending by Taiwanese during overseas travel would rebound later this year or early next year.
It is the nation’s first cobranded card introduced by a bank and an online travel agency.
E.Sun expects ezTravel, the nation’s largest travel platform with more than 2 million active users, to help expand its client base, E.Sun Commercial Bank chairman Joseph Huang (黃男州) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
The platform has diverse product offerings, such as airline and cruise tickets, and accommodation and travel programs, so partnering with ezTravel meets the bank’s goal of offering one-stop services to its clients, Huang said.
Asked why the bank did not collaborate with an airline as other banks have, E.Sun credit card and payment division vice president Sean Lin (林榮華) said that flying is just one way of traveling.
CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) has partnered with China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) is collaborating with EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) to offer joint services.
E.Sun said that people can earn eMoney points for many kinds of purchases on ezTravel and use them for their next transaction on the platform, with one point worth NT$1.
“Overall, this credit card is suitable for those who love travel. Reward rates are set at 8 percent for purchases of airline tickets or accommodation. They can be even 10 percent for new clients.” Huang said.
While domestic travel has fully recovered in western Taiwan, overseas travel by Taiwanese might not return to pre-pandemic levels this year due to border controls and a weekly arrival limit of 40,000 set by the government, Lin said.
“However, we need to adopt a forward-looking strategy for the credit card business, as there are signs of a rebound in demand for overseas travel. It is possible that international travel would fully recover next year,” Huang said.
E.Sun has over the past few years issued innovative credit cards to satisfy its clients’ needs. Last month, it issued the nation’s first digital credit card, which consists only of a number and not a physical card.
“Surprisingly, the digital card was received better than our expectations and we have issued about 50,000 cards. That might be because just a few channels or shops accept only physical cards,” Huang said.
Credit card spending in the nation totaled NT$258 billion (US$8.6 billion) in May, up 7.8 percent monthly and 7.6 percent annually, as consumers spent more at supermarkets and hypermarkets, and used credit cards to pay taxes, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed on Thursday.
Cathay United Bank ranked first in terms of credit card payments with NT$43.96 billion, followed by CTBC Bank with NT$40.41 billion and E.Sun Bank with NT$35.22 billion, the data showed.
In the first five months of this year, credit card spending totaled NT$1.28 trillion, up 5 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
The figure was also the highest for the five-month period since 2019, as people spent more on online shopping and food deliveries, as well as travel and accommodation, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission said.
The data indicated that people maintained their normal spending habits while coexisting with the virus, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Roger Lin (林志吉) said on Thursday.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
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
RSS