Taiwan card payments market to be worth $187.7b by 2025

The market is forecasted to rebound by over 15% in 2021.

Despite suffering from a setback due to the pandemic, Taiwan’s card payments market is still on-track to reach $187.7b by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) or 9.5%.

The market is forecasted to rebound by 15.2% to $130.6b in 2021 compared to the year before, after a 6.3% decline in 2020. 

“Taiwan has a robust card market with high card penetration with each individual having on average seven cards. The pandemic has further highlighted the importance of non-cash payments which is expected to drive card payments growth,” said Nikhil Reddy, Payments Senior Analyst at GlobalData.

Taiwan is among few nations that have handled the COVID-19 pandemic effectively with the total death count standing at 846 as of 11 October 2021, much lower compared to other Asian nations, GlobalData notes.

“Although Taiwan’s economy remained resilient from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall consumer spending contracted and subsequently hampered the card payments,” Reddy said. “However, the market is now set to grow at a robust pace over the next four years, supported by strong payments infrastructure, growing preference for electronic payments, and government incentives.”

To boost consumption and drive credit card spending, Taiwan launched a ‘triple stimulus voucher’ program in 2020, which allowed consumers to earn cash back worth TWD2,000 (US$71.20) on credit card purchases. 

A similar program called Quintuple Stimulus Voucher program was launched in September and will run until April 2022, offering cash back worth TWD5,000 (US$178.01) on purchases using payment cards.