China has now reached an eye-watering level of bank card distribution. What's next?
By the end of 2017 China had issued 7.03 billion bank cards. The equivalent to each person in the country holding 5 cards on average, according to a speech (in Chinese) from Huang Runzhong, secretary general China Banking Association, CBA. «Consumption via bank cards accounted for 48.7 percent of China’s total retail sales of consumer goods, rising for a fourth year,» Huang highlighted in his address.
Last year, the number of transactions via bank cards rose 29.4 percent to 149 billion, with a total of 735 trillion Chinese renminbi (about $113 trillion) swiped from bank cards. According to a wealth report compiled by Boston Consulting Group the number of affluent and ultra-rich in China is growing at a faster pace than any other country.
