MACAO, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The total number of personal credit cards issued by banks in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) continued to rise in the first quarter of 2019, and both the credit card turnover and total repayments witnessed growth, the SAR's monetary watchdog said on Wednesday.
According to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the total number of personal credit cards issued by banks in Macao stood at 1.34 million at the end of March 2019, equivalent to an increase of 1.9 percent over a quarter earlier, or 9.8 percent over a year earlier.
The numbers of pataca cards, Hong Kong dollar cards and RMB cards grew year-on-year by 9.1 percent to 939,059, 6.8 percent to 95,089 and 13.2 percent to 301,950 respectively.
At the end of March 2019, credit card credit limit granted by banks in Macao reached 37.3 billion patacas (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.4 percent from the end of December 2018 or 26.5 percent from the end of March 2018.
Credit card receivables amounted to 2.5 billion patacas (about 309.8 million dollars), of which the rollover amount totaled 822.3 million patacas (about 101.9 million dollars), representing 32.4 percent of credit card receivables.
The delinquency ratio, or the ratio of delinquent amount overdue for more than three months to credit card receivables, rose 0.33 percentage points to 1.65 percent when compared with the previous period.
For the first quarter, the credit card turnover totaled 5.7 billion patacas (about 706.4 million U.S. dollars), equivalent to a drop of 6.8 percent quarter-to-quarter but a rise of 4.9 percent year-on-year.
Credit card repayments, including interest and fees, rose 4.4 percent from the previous quarter, or 6.2 percent from the same period last year, to 6.1 billion patacas (about 756.0 million U.S. dollars).
