Chinese bank card use surges: report

Each Chinese person had an average of more than three bank cards at the end of last year as a growing number turn to non-cash transactions, showed a report by the central bank on Monday.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a report on the country's banking payment services that banks and financial institutions issued about 4.2 billion bank cards in 2013, up 19.23 percent from a year earlier.

Among those cards issued, the number of credit cards rose 18.03 percent year on year to 391 million at the end of last year, meaning 0.29 credit card on average per Chinese.

PBOC data also showed credit card loans that were more than six months overdue surged 71.86 percent year on year to 25.19 billion yuan at the end of last year, or accounting for 1.37 percent of the total credit loans outstanding, up 0.08 percentage points from a year earlier.