Chinese Credit Card Boom

Statistics from the Peoples Bank of China show that they have issued in excess of 20,000,000 credit cards in twenty different formats throughout mainland China.

12,000,000 citizens hold personal credit cards but this still only accounts for around one percent of the Chinese population.

Intense competition within the credit card arena has escalated to a peak.  With more and more financial institutions joining the battle by introducing series after series of new credit card related products, this has been particularly obvious since January 2006. In one example a large bank issued over 500,000 credit cards in less than five months.

The same bank has issued seven different cards with various themes including the world cup. The China CITIC Bank introduced half a dozen cards with airline, student and world cup themes. China Merchants Bank, Chinas biggest issuer launched its airline credit cards, in an agreement with Japanese airline ANA.