Under the pressure of economic downturn, debt risks and other factors, the growth rate of credit card (debit card) issuance slowed down in the first half of the year, the pressure on asset quality continued to increase, and non-performing assets were generated rapidly.

From an industry perspective, the growth rate of credit card (credit card) issuance at the end of the first half of 2019 was only 3.5% compared with the beginning of the year, while the year-on-year growth rates in 2017 and 2018 were over 26% and 16.7% respectively. Among them, the number of credit cards (debit cards) of Bank of Communications at the end of the first half of this year decreased by 80,000 compared with the beginning of the year, which is the first time in history.

At the same time, the non-performing rate of credit cards (debit cards) of many banks has increased. For example, compared with the beginning of the year, the credit card (debit card) non-performing ratio of Bank of Communications increased by 0.97 percentage points, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank increased by 0.57 percentage points, China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank increased by 0.19 and 0.05 percentage points respectively from the beginning of the year.

The growth rate of card issuance dropped to single digits.

The "Overall Operation of the Payment System in the Second Quarter of 2019" released by the central bank shows that as of the end of the second quarter, the number of credit cards (credit cards) (including debit and credit cards) in use was *** 711 million, an increase of only 25 million from the beginning of the year, and a growth rate of only 3.5.

At the end of 2018, the cumulative number of credit cards (credit cards) (including debit and credit cards) issued in my country reached 686 million, with a year-on-year growth rate of 16.7%; at the end of 2017, the number of credit cards (credit cards) issued Reaching 588 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 26%.

This trend is also reflected in the semi-annual reports of various banks. At the end of the first half of this year, among the six major state-owned banks, only Agricultural Bank of China and Postal Savings Bank of China had double-digit growth rates in cumulative or new credit card issuance. As of the end of June, Agricultural Bank of China had issued a total of 114 million credit cards (credit cards), a year-on-year increase of 10.6%. Credit card (credit card) consumption in the first half of the year was 959.9 billion yuan, an increase of 13.96%; Postal Savings Bank of China issued 5.1978 million new cards, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%. An increase of 28.94%, and the consumption amount of credit cards (debit cards) was 444.817 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.55%.

In the first half of the year, China Construction Bank issued a total of 128 million cards, an increase of 5.43% from the beginning of the year; Industrial and Commercial Bank of China issued a total of 154.45 million credit cards, with 3.45 million new cards issued. Bank of China issued a total of 118.3296 million credit cards (debit cards) at the end of June, with 7.67 million new cards issued.

It is worth mentioning that the Bank of Communications, another major state-owned bank, issued a total of 71.47 million cards at the end of the first half of the year, a decrease of 80,000 cards from the beginning of the year. This phenomenon has occurred for the first time in many years. "In response to changes in the external market situation, our bank adopts a multi-pronged approach to pre-lending and in-loan management and control, proactively strengthens the balance between credit card (debit card) business development and risk management, and improves collection efficiency and asset preservation capabilities," the Bank of Communications said in its annual report. .

In addition, China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank, which have issued more cards in the past two years, have also become "conservative" in the first half of this year, with single-digit growth rates. As of June 30, the number of credit cards (credit cards) of China Merchants Bank in circulation was 90.6104 million, an increase of 7.48% from the end of the previous year; the total number of credit cards (credit cards) of Ping An Bank was 55.7039 million, an increase of 8% from the end of 2018.

A senior researcher at Suning Financial Research Institute said that under the downward pressure on the real economy and strong financial regulatory policies, banks have proactively adjusted their strategies and are no longer so aggressive in their credit card (debit card) strategies. In addition, p2p incidents occurred frequently in 2018, increasing the risks of credit cards. In the process of rapid development of credit card (debit card) business, the customer base is gradually sinking, and banks are also wary of the personal credit risks of credit cards (debit cards).

However, the domestic credit card (debit card) market space is still far from peaking. my country's current per capita card holding rate is only about 0.5, while the per capita card holding rate in developed countries such as the United States is about 3. The gap is still very obvious.

The non-performing rate has increased

The semi-annual report shows that among the six major banks and national joint-stock banks, the non-performing rate of credit cards (debit cards) of Bank of Communications and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has increased significantly: 6 At the end of the month, the credit card (debit card) non-performing ratio of Bank of Communications was 2.49, an increase of 0.97 percentage points from the beginning of the year, and that of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank was 2.38, an increase of 0.57 percentage points from the beginning of this year.

In addition, the non-performing credit card (debit card) loan ratios of China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank at the end of June were 1.3% and 1.37% respectively, up 0.19 and 0.05 percentage points respectively from the beginning of the year. The balances increased by 33% and 12% respectively from the beginning of the year.

“Affected by external factors such as the uncertainty in the international and domestic economic and financial situation and the increase in debt risks, the risks of the entire consumer finance industry have increased, but the overall risk performance remains unchanged. At a relatively low level," Ping An Bank said.

China CITIC Bank also mentioned in its semi-annual report that since 2018, there have been an increasing number of market lending entities such as cash loans, Internet consumer loans, and P2P. Debt risks have continued to accumulate, and the asset quality of the market's leading debtor groups has deteriorated. Fluctuations are obvious, and such risks tend to be transmitted to the credit card (debit card) industry; at the same time, with the continuous adjustment of the industrial structure, the employment and income stability of some regions and industry practitioners have been affected to a certain extent, resulting in the repayment of some customers. The ability and willingness to repay are reduced. The superposition of these two factors has led to an increase in credit card (debit card) business risks.

“As far as the entire industry is concerned, the risks in the credit card (debit card) field of all banks are actually increasing to varying degrees. This is related to the decline in cardholders’ income caused by changes in the external environment on the one hand, and also on the other hand. Affected by high leverage exposure, Liu Xianfeng, retail director of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, said at the interim results meeting.

Huang Dazhi said that with regard to the risk of foreign debt, banks should first conduct more strict audits of foreign debt customers. In addition, banks should establish extensive cooperative relationships with various Internet lending institutions to detect indebted customers in advance.

In addition, the high non-performing rate of credit cards (debit cards) is also related to the frequent occurrence of P2P risk events and the gradual decline of credit card (debit card) customers from the best customers.

"With the advancement of supervision in 2018, risk events occurred intensively on P2P and other online lending platforms, which affected the quality of credit card (debit card) loans through debt risks. In addition to debt risks, credit card The rise of non-performing loans (credit cards) is essentially related to the current overall macro-environment. The overall credit situation is tight in 2018, and the growth rate of social financing stock is at a new low. When the financing growth rate cannot guarantee the interest repayment of the existing debt, it will inevitably lead to debt defaults and credit card debt. Among the entities behind (credit cards), those with poor qualifications and weak ability to obtain credit resources have been affected and have difficulties in cashing out. Especially in 2017, my country's credit card (credit card) business expanded rapidly, which is also behind the increase in card issuance volume. Along with the decline in customer qualifications, the proportion of less qualified borrowers has increased," said Jiang Chao, an analyst at Haitong Securities.

A general manager of the credit card (debit card) center of a joint-stock bank also told China Business News that in recent years, Internet financial crimes have become industrialized and financial fraud has emerged as a very serious problem. In the past two years, in order to save recursive costs, the industry vigorously developed online card issuance, which provided opportunities for financial crimes and caused a lot of losses to banks. At present, many banks are constantly strengthening new technologies to screen customers and develop big data models such as fraud scoring to identify fraud risks such as false applications. In addition, the focus of card issuance has shifted from online to offline.

Affected by factors such as downward pressure on the real economy, strong financial supervision, and early aggressive strategies, the asset quality of credit cards (debit cards) will decline in the second half of the year. However, another joint-stock bank credit card (debit card) person said that although the asset quality of credit cards (debit cards) will be under pressure in the future, it has been controlled and will not grow significantly.

"Overall Payment System Operation in the Second Quarter of 2019" shows that the total outstanding credit of credit cards (credit cards) that is overdue for six months is 83.884 billion yuan, accounting for 1.17% of the credit balance payable by credit cards (credit cards) , the proportion increased by 0.02 percentage points compared with the end of the previous quarter.

Currently, local regulators have begun to take action to prevent credit card (debit card) risks. For example, on August 26, the Beijing Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau issued the "Regulatory Opinions on Strengthening the Prevention and Control of Bank Card Risks" requiring that commercial banks within its jurisdiction should actively introduce personal credit reporting, communication operators, social security, provident funds, tax payment certificates, transportation External trusted data such as the Ministry of Transport's ETC data, constantly optimize risk assessment models and transaction monitoring models, and use "big data model" technical means to continuously improve the bank card risk management system. At the same time, bank cards and related binding businesses are strictly prohibited from giving away, Vicious competition is carried out through promotional methods such as discounts and discounts.