Chinese have wracked up over US$1 billion in credit card in the first six months of the year. The banks, used to giving out loans to State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) and local governments without much hope of getting repaid – seem to be accelerating their credit card offers to consumers. Beijing, though, is not impressed, and recently reminded the Banks they are businesses, after all. Perhaps the Banks believe they are too big to fail; after all, the government bailed them out of the Non-Performing Loan (NPL) mess they’d gotten themselves into at the turn of the new century; and with the trillions of RMB the Banks have lent out during the first three quarters of this year, perhaps they feel the credit card debt is just a drop in the bucket. Looks like an entire society has a lot to learn about the pitfalls of credit cards – or at least of not paying down the debt they incur.

Further reading: CER