Credit Card Lending Survey Results for Fourth Quarter 2010

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

Total card receivables grew by 12.0% to HK$87.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, after increasing 5.0% in the third quarter. The increase was largely due to festive spending around the year end and the payment of salaries tax using credit cards. The total number of credit card accounts also increased by 2.8% to 13.8 million.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, fell by 1.2% to HK$19.1 billion at end-December 2010.

The charge-off amount declined by 11.5% in the fourth quarter of 2010 to HK$324 million or around 0.4% of average receivables at end-December 2010. The quarterly annualised¹ charge-off ratio correspondingly fell to 1.56% from 1.92% in the previous quarter.

The amount of rescheduled receivables transferred outside the surveyed institutions' credit card portfolios decreased to HK$104 million from HK$144 million in the previous quarter.

The delinquency ratio declined to 0.20% from 0.22% at end-September 2010 despite an increase of the delinquent amount by 1.2% to HK$173 million at end-December 2010. The combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio (after taking into account the transfer of rescheduled receivables mentioned above) declined to 0.28% at end-December 2010 from 0.32% at end-September 2010.

Annex

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
14 February 2011

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