Chinese are making increasing use of the credit card. They use it more and for larger transactions:
Chinese consumers spent 166 trillion yuan ($24.3 trillion) with their bank cards last year in China, up 30.5 percent from 2008, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said Monday in a statement on its official website.
The total number of bank card transactions in China topped 19.7 billion in 2009, a growth of 18.1 percent year-on-year, said the PBOC.
China issued 270 million new bank cards last year, down 10.1 percent from 2008, according to the statement.
And, naturally, what happens elsewhere happens there too (this from November 30, 2009):
Credit card debt at least six months overdue in China rose 126.5 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2009 to 7.43 billion yuan ($1.09 billion), the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said Monday.
Debt overdue by six months or more accounted for 3.4 percent of the total outstanding credit card debt at the end of the third quarter, up 0.3 percentage points from the end of the second quarter.(…)
By the end of Sept 30, China’s banks had issued 175 million credit cards, up 33.3 percent from the same period last year.
In the second quarter of 2009, credit card debt at least six months overdue rose 131.3 percent from a year earlier to 5.77 billion yuan.
In the first quarter of 2009, credit card debt at least six months overdue rose 133.1 percent from a year earlier to 4.97 billion yuan.
China Daily
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I can’t say that I’m too surprised to hear about the increase in spending through bank cards in China. After all, they are catching up with us on all other fronts!