March 31, 2006
With Taiwan's Internet infrastructure increasingly developed and Internet payment methods, Internet ATM services in particular, growing in popularity, the stage is being set for Taiwan's already-active Internet auction market to experience a big take-off in transaction values, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said in early March.
At the end of 2005, there were 4.6 million broadband Internet accounts in Taiwan, for an impressive penetration rate of 57.5%.
Since the first banks introduced Internet ATM services in April 2004, the number of banks now offering these services has grown to 26. The number of transactions conducted though these systems surpassed 640,000 for all of January 2006.
The convenience and security of these systems is behind the growth in the number of users. Taiwan's Internet ATM systems rely on a small desk-top device into which users can insert their normal silicon-chip ATM cards, just as they would with traditional ATMs. The only difference in services between the Internet ATM and regular ATM systems is that users cannot withdraw money.
Analysts at the Market Intelligence Center of Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry predict that the use of Internet ATM services will increase dramatically this year. They expect the total number of such transactions to reach 24 million in 2006, and that these transactions will also generate around
NTD 400 million in revenue from transaction fees for banks.
MIC figures show that Taiwan's Internet auction market reached a scale of
NTD 31.7 billion in 2005. This marked a growth of 65% compared to the
NTD 19.2 billion achieved in 2004. The CEPD expects this market to see even greater growth due to the increased popularity of Internet ATM services.
(Central News Agency)
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