Tag Archives: stimulus vouchers

How Do I Register for the Quintuple Stimulus Vouchers

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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:

  1. 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
  2. You can register to tie the vouchers to your credit card.
  3. You tie them to Easycard style cards (like Ipass etc)
  4. 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.

Taiwanese Grumbles in Graffiti: Give Us Some Cash

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Saw this new piece of graffiti on the border of the Zhongzheng and Wanlong Districts of Taipei. It reads 「民不聊生」 (“The people have no way of making a living”) and across the top in a slightly different shade (possibly added by another person?) is 「發現金」 (“Issue Cash”), suggesting the government give out cash for stimulus.

Taiwan is back in heightened Level 2 restrictions, meaning that while restaurants and other venues are gradually opening up, bars and clubs and many entertainment venues are still closed. Not going to jinx it, but cases have been down for several days now, so hopefully life can return to normal soon and business owners will be able to start making some money again.

Apply for your Stimulus Vouchers to be Deducted from your Credit Card Bill with your APRC

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So, it’s happening, a limited group of foreigners (APRC holders) can now access stimulus vouchers (振興券 zhènxīngquàn / 三倍券sānbèiquàn). Here’s how:

Go to the Executive Yuan Triple Stimulus Voucher website:

You can pick different options, apparently if you want the printed vouchers you can go to a Post Office branch with your APRC, NHI card and NT$1000, but I’m going to do the Credit Card Link for the purposes of this post. (Beware, going the credit card route is not Instagram friendly, but you can just type #TripleStimulus on any major social network and nab someone else’s photo for some physical voucher sheek on your timeline, without the hassle of having to carry around and spend physical vouchers.)

Once you click, you’ll see a list of banks and pick the one you have a credit card with:

In my case, I have a card with E Sun, so when you click through on their site, you’ll come to a page in Chinese, with several options. What you want to do is tie your digital vouchers to your credit card account, which is the option below in the case of E Sun:

You’ll be asked to enter your ARC number and your date of birth (ROC style, so subtract 1911 from your birth year, eg. 1985 – 11 = 74 and format is YYMMDD) and a captcha code.

They’ll then ask you to fill in a code sent to your phone and the following options will come up>

The first option in the list is to have the vouchers subtracted from the balance of your next credit card bill, which is what I want.

So, just click 送出 and it will check your info and if successful you’ll get the following message:

OK! Job done! And well done you for stimulating Taiwan’s economy like a good little consumer!

Let me know if you have any know-how to share with other readers on other ways to exchange your vouchers or experience with other banks!

UPDATE: I applied to link my account on November 16, according to E.Sun the eligibility started for purchases made after November 23, so for most people the money will be deducted from December’s bill. I also received a text from my bank giving me notice that I’ve already spent enough from my next bill to qualify:

Go gadget economy!