Credit Card Lending Survey Results for First Quarter 2009

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced today (Thursday) the results of its survey on credit card lending for the first quarter of 2009.

Total card receivables declined by 8.1% (or $6.3 billion) in the first quarter of 2009, after rising 4.3% in the previous quarter. The decline was largely due to the receding effect of payment of salaries tax by credit card and festive spending around the year end. The transfer of rescheduled receivables outside the surveyed institutions' credit card portfolios rose to $221 million, from $143 million in the previous quarter. The total number of credit card accounts increased slightly by 0.9%.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, declined to $22.9 billion at end-March 2009 from $23.8 billion at end-December 2008.

The charge-off amount rose to $727 million, or 1% of average receivables, in the first quarter of 2009 from $584 million in the previous quarter. The quarterly annualised¹ charge-off ratio stepped up to 3.92% from 3.09% in the previous quarter.

The delinquent amount increased to $350 million in the first quarter of 2009 compared with $263 million in the previous quarter. The delinquency ratio rose to 0.49% in the first quarter of 2009 from 0.34% in the fourth quarter of 2008. The combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio (after taking into account the transfers mentioned above) increased to 0.58% at end-March 2009, from 0.41% at end-December 2008.

Annex

For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
21 May 2009

¹ This assumes the quarterly rate of charge-off is maintained for the next three quarters.