American Express Co. has temporarily stopped issuing credit cards in Taiwan because of a rise in consumer defaults.
A spokeswoman, Tiffany Chen, said Amex is "reviewing its approval criteria" for new cards in Taiwan.
Many banks in Taiwan responded to an increase in defaults by putting a hold on making consumer loans in the second half of last year or tightening their lending standards. Many also increased their provisions for bad loans in the fourth quarter.
Bank officials said they had lowered their approval standards in the previous two years to gain market share, and that hurt loan quality.
American Express announced the move Friday. Ms. Chen said its credit card business in Taiwan will be back to normal as soon as "the market situation improves and we are done with our internal review."
American Express ended 2005 with 259,840 cards in circulation in Taiwan - about 0.6% of the market, according to Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission.
Ms. Chen said Amex customers in Taiwan spend two to 2.5 times the market average on their cards.
