STANDARD Chartered Bank (China) Ltd has applied to regulators to launch branded credit cards on the Chinese mainland, according to Virginia Tang, general manager of the bank's credit cards and personal loans in China.

Standard Chartered is among the first batch of overseas banks to seek to issue yuan-backed cards on the mainland. The others are HSBC, Citibank and the Bank of East Asia.

Standard Chartered yesterday launched its first unsecured personal loan product in Shanghai. The selling point is that no collateral or guarantor is required. The loan, targeting the mass market, ranges from 8,000 yuan (US$1,050) to 200,000 yuan. It has maturities ranging from six months to four years with interest rates from 7.9 percent to 9.9 percent.