Credit Card Lending Survey Results for First Quarter 2010

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of its survey on credit card lending for the first quarter of 2010.

Total card receivables decreased by 4.9% (or HK$3.7 billion) in the first quarter of 2010, after increasing 6.6% in the previous quarter. The decrease was largely due to the receding effect of festive spending around the year end and the payment of salaries tax using credit cards. The total number of credit card accounts increased by 0.3 million to 12.7 million.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, reduced by HK$0.8 billion to HK$20.3 billion at end-March 2010.

The charge-off amount declined to HK$439 million, or around 0.6% of average receivables, in the first quarter of 2010 from HK$564 million in the previous quarter. The quarterly annualised¹ charge-off ratio also declined to 2.39% from 3.10% in the previous quarter. The transfer of rescheduled receivables outside the surveyed institutions' credit card portfolios decreased to HK$209 million from HK$280 million in the previous quarter.

The delinquent amount decreased to HK$232 million in the first quarter of 2010 compared with HK$255 million in the previous quarter. The delinquency ratio also dropped to 0.32% from 0.34% in the fourth quarter of 2009. The combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio (after taking into account the transfer of rescheduled receivables mentioned above) declined to 0.45% at end-March 2010 from 0.46% at end-December 2009.

Annex

For further enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687 or
Natalie Wu, Officer (Communications), at 2878 8246

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
13 May 2010

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