Credit Card Lending Survey Results for Second Quarter 2009

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

Total card receivables declined by 0.3% (or HK$0.2 billion) in the second quarter of 2009, after declining 8.1% in the previous quarter. The total number of credit card accounts increased by 2.2%.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, declined by HK$0.7 billion to HK$22.2 billion at end-June 2009.

The charge-off amount rose to HK$815 million, or around 1.2% of average receivables, in the second quarter of 2009 from HK$727 million in the previous quarter. The quarterly annualised¹ charge-off ratio increased to 4.61% from 3.92% in the previous quarter. The transfer of rescheduled receivables outside the surveyed institutions' credit card portfolios rose further to HK$353 million, from HK$221 million in the previous quarter.

The delinquent amount increased to HK$357 million in the second quarter of 2009 compared with HK$350 million in the previous quarter. The delinquency ratio also rose slightly to 0.50% in the second quarter from 0.49% in the first quarter of 2009. The combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio (after taking into account the transfer of rescheduled receivables mentioned above) increased to 0.61% at end-June 2009, from 0.58% at end-March 2009.

Annex

For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Natalie Wu, Officer (Communications), at 2878 8246

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
14 August 2009

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