If your online banking is crashing today, it’s likely because the Executive Yuan has released NT$5,000 stimulus vouchers starting today and banks are making a ream of offers to early birds.
If you’ve got an APRC or are a Taiwanese citizen with household registration and a bit of patience, you can get them by navigating to the dedicated website here or the English version here.
There are four options:
- You can wait until to book the paper version in advance:
First round advance booking: September 25 – October 1
First round withdrawal: October 8 – October 21
Second round advance booking: October 25 – November 1
Second round withdrawal: November 8 – November 21 - You can register to tie the vouchers to your credit card.
- You tie them to Easycard style cards (like Ipass etc)
- You can tie them to a digital wallet, like Taiwan Pay, etc
Currently, the website is patchy as it’s getting a lot of hits, so it’s best to go through your bank or payment method of choice, which all feature prominent links.
I chose to tie mine to Taiwan Pay through the Megabank app. Most banks have a simple enough interface to navigate but don’t give up if they throw up an error message, as everyone is rushing on the first day.
If you’ve panicked and want to check exactly what you’ve registered for, you can use this function to check your status.
The advantage of using digital versions, is that there are often additional offers. The downside, as I’ve mentioned before, is that you don’t get to brag on Instagram.
There are additional bonuses you can accrue, depending on which bank or payment app you tie your vouchers to:
Taiwan Pay is offering additional funds to a certain number of registrants.
ESun is offering NT$50 for single registrants, but you can increase this by registering as a group.
Note: the spending period for the vouchers starts October 8!
For Taiwan Pay, the first period of payment runs from October 8-22, which is when they’ll calculate what bonuses you get back. This will be deposited in your account November 1. Then the second spending period runs from October 23-29 and the kickbacks will be deposited into your account on November 8. The third spending period runs from October 30 – November 5, and the kickbacks are deposited on November 15.