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Bank Cards Exceed 330 Million in China
Fifty-five financial institutions in China had issued 330 million bank cards of various kind by June this year, sources with the People's Bank of China ( PBOC) said Friday in Beijing.
The number represents an 18.4 percent increase from the same period of last year, the central bank said.
Financial institutions that had opened bank card businesses include four state-owned commercial banks, ten shareholding commercial banks, one post office, 29 city commercial banks as well as 11 rural credit unions.
The outstanding amount of bank card deposits hit 374.2 billion yuan during the same period, up 28.6 percent from the end of last year.
Trade volume of bank cards totaled 4.85 trillion yuan or an increase of 224 percent from a year ago, PBOC sources said.
Currently, China has 129,000 banking outlets handling bank card businesses, and there are 49,000 automatic teller machines (ATMs) across the country.
Wu Xiaoling, deputy governor of PBOC, noted that China's bank card sector is faced with both opportunities and challenges with the country's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The central bank and all commercial banks will implement a series of measures to promote the inter-linking of different bank cards.
These measures include upgrading the standardization system of bank's business processing system, ATM and POS systems; improving the legal framework concerning bank card business; deepening reform of its management; and enhancing supervision of the risk- control methods.
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