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Consumers with credit cards issued by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., commonly known as ICBC, have spent more than 180 billion yuan (US$26.3 billion or 19.3 billion euros) with their cards since 1 Jan., a total that exceeds the 162 billion yuan spent in all of 2007, a bank spokesperson tells CardLine Global. For the first half of 2008, the bank earned 3.2 billion yuan in net income from its payment card business, up 28% from 2.5 billion yuan for the same period last year. The bank has issued some 36 million credit cards, up 56.5% from 23 million on issue at the end of 2007. The bank has issued at least 184 million debit cards, though earlier figures were not immediately available. The bank already holds a leading position in the Chinese credit card market, and it will remain in that position if the growth rates continue, Zhang Hua, a Beijing-based analyst with Celent LLC, tells CardLine Global. "But at this stage, how to increase the credit card-usage rate is more important than the card-issuance rate," Zhang says. "The card-usage amount is the key for banks to get more profit from this sector."
