THE number of credit cards surged 144 percent in China last year due to its popularity as means of payment, the central bank said yesterday.
There were more than 71.62 million credit cards in circulation in China at the end of 2007, more than double the figure a year ago, the People's Bank of China said on its Website.
The total number of bank cards, including debit and credit cards, topped 1.5 billion at the end of last year in China, a jump of 32.63 percent, the central bank said.
Bank card-based transactions took up 21.9 percent of the country's total retail sales, up 4.9 percentage points from a year ago.
Bank cards are expected to account for 30 percent of retail sales in big cities this year while they will move up to at least 10 percent in small and medium-sized cities as the cards are increasingly being promoted, the central bank said in 2007.
Moves are afoot to enhance the bank card payment system such as putting more point-of-sale terminals in shops and restaurants ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.
Bank card-based spending will take up 60 percent of sales at merchants whose annual revenue is over 1 million yuan (US$142,800) and 25 percent at shops with less than 1 million yuan this year.