Credit Card Lending Survey Results for Fourth Quarter 2011

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of the survey on credit card lending for the fourth quarter of 2011.

Total card receivables increased by 10.9% to HK$100.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, after increasing 4.2% in the third quarter of 2011.  The increase was mainly due to festive spending around the year end and the payment of salaries tax using credit cards.  The total number of credit card accounts increased by 1.9% to 15.1 million.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, rose by 8.3% during the quarter.

The charge-off amount declined by 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2011 to HK$360 million (or around 0.4% of average receivables) at end-December 2011.  The quarterly annualised¹ charge-off ratio fell to 1.51% compared with 1.70% in the previous quarter.

The amount of rescheduled receivables transferred outside the surveyed institutions’ credit card portfolios decreased to HK$67 million from HK$87 million in the previous quarter.   

The delinquent amount increased to HK$188 million at end-December 2011 from HK$166 million at end-September 2011. Correspondingly, the delinquency ratio edged up to 0.19% from 0.18% at end-September 2011.  However, the combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio (after taking into account the transfer of rescheduled receivables mentioned above) remained unchanged at 0.25%.

Annex

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
17 February 2012

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