Alarming 'Credit card slavery'

The Shanghai Banking Regulatory Commission fined seven commercial banks recently for breaking rules, including not properly determining cardholders' ability to repay loans. Three members of a Shanghai family, in a way, became victims of banks' leniency when they committed suicide in June for being unable to repay their 2.4 million yuan ($392,000) credit card debt. The late punishment imposed on banks cannot bring the three back to life, but at least it warns banks as well as the public to be wary of credit card debts, says an article in Beijing News. Excerpts:

The "credit card slavery" of the Shanghai family is not news in China. Last year, credit card debts outstanding for 6 months or more jumped 71.9 percent to more than 25 billion yuan ($4.08 billion). The outstanding debt figure should give an idea of the number of "credit card slaves" in the country.

Lured by short-term profits in issuing credit cards, many commercial banks offer easy access to authorization in a bid to attract more applicants, even if some of them don't have the ability to repay their debts. But the banks alone are not to blame for the situation. Lack of proper supervision on the social credit system too should be blamed. And to improve supervision, all sides, including the departments of tax, finance and police, need to collect accurate data on every person before issuing him/her a credit card.