Australian credit card debt has climbed to a record high, with total outstandings reaching AU$49.3 billion (US$52 billion or 36.8 billion euros) in March, up 4.7% from AU$47.1 billion a year earlier, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia.
A spending binge fueled by stimulus packages Australia injected into the economy during the global financial crisis helped spike the nation’s card debt, Mrinalini Manral, a banking analyst based in Mumbai, India, tells PaymentsSource.
“At that time, cards were being provided with low documentation or no documentation at all,” she adds. “If the card issuers are not made to rein in how they have been luring cardholders, and then enticing them to spend more, the debt could rise to unmanageable proportions.”
This year’s March receivables total is more than 42.1% higher than the AU$34.7 billion in card outstandings in March 2006, the central bank’s data show.
Australians in March spent AU$21.5 billion using credit and charge cards, up 2.9% from AU$20.9 billion during the same month last year, data from the central bank show. They initiated 143.7 million transactions during the month, up 3.2% from 139.2 million.
On average, each Australian cardholder holds two to three cards, according to Manral. With some 14.6 million credit card accounts in Australia, the average debt owed per card is about AU$3,377, which is much higher than in other nations in the Asia Pacific region, she adds.
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