Economy

China's credit card delinquency rate rises in Q1

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-18 16:41

BEIJING - Chinese credit card holders' delinquency rate rose in the first quarter of this year, China's central bank said Wednesday.

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Payments overdue for more than six months totaled 8.21 billion yuan ($1.26 billion) at the end of March this year, up 6.7 percent over three months ago, the People's Bank of China said in a quarterly report.

China had issued 242 million credit cards by the end of March this year, up 25.7 percent over that at the end of March last year, according to the report.

Credit card overdrafts hit 473.78 billion yuan as of the end of March, surging 90.6 percent year-on-year, the report said. This was 24.62 billion yuan more than the amount of overdrafts incurred by the end of December 2010.