TAIPEI, July 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As mobile payments were becoming more and more prevalent, in 2015 E.SUN Commercial Bank began laying the foundation for mobile payment service-related businesses, achieving numerous firsts and milestones in the industry. It was the first company in Taiwan to partner with Alipay to push QR code payments, the first to issue HCE (host card emulation) mobile credit cards, and the first to provide multiple payment services integrating credit cards and electronic stored value cards. "E.SUN Wallet" supported mobile payments at convenience store chains Family Mart and Hi-Life, as well as hypermarkets and drugstores such as Carrefour and Watsons. The "E.SUN Pi Wallet Credit Card" was launched in 2018, and was the first to offer an instant card binding service to connect payment providers with online utility payments, mobile wallet-linked cards, and other types of digital payments. Among them, the technology used in the instant card binding service has been patented.
In response to the Taiwan's triple stimulus voucher program and in the spirit of a stimulus plan that was launched to benefit the people, E.SUN Commercial Bank announced benefits for binding the vouchers to its products, such as an additional 1 percent payback and paybacks of up to 10 percent for designated channels. Additionally, it worked together with its partners to offer various reward options; for example, new users who applied for the U Bear card or Pi Wallet card online could receive a reward for consumption over a certain amount or P coins as a first transaction gift, encouraging consumers to use digital triple stimulus vouchers. In the two months since the launch of the triple-stimulus vouchers, the number of credit card applications saw a surge of 50 percent, the Pi Wallet app saw a 16 percent increase in number of downloads, and number of digital triple stimulus vouchers bound reached 60,000 sets, showing an increase of 20 to 30 percent in normal transaction volume. Both the number of consumers using the E.SUN Wallet mobile payment service and the monetary value of transactions doubled, with online, non-physical card transactions also surpassing offline, physical credit card transactions.
The triple stimulus vouchers magnified P coins by 100 percent.
Despite the fact that physical stores and large-scale chains have all launched their own incentives, the redemption and use of paper vouchers exceeded that of bound digital vouchers. However, a look back at the development of non-cash payment transactions in Taiwan during the past five years shows that the active promotion of digital payment services by the government and financial sector helped to boost the digital payment rate from 26 percent to over 50 percent.
E.SUN Commercial Bank believes that for businesses, the triple stimulus vouchers have achieved more than simply bringing economic benefits to digital payments. The implementation of this program also increased the public's recognition and acceptance of non-cash payment transaction methods. Digital payment providers have not only seen short-term economic benefits, but also a multiplier effect resulting from the education of the people through a public policy. It is hoped that people's recognition and acceptance of mobile payments will continue to rise in the post-COVID period.
