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China issues 762m bank cards by 2004 Chinese banks have been issuing more bank cards in recent years, which totaled 762 million at the end of 2004. Among these cards, 663 million were debit cards and 98 million were credit cards, according to the latest statistics from the People's Bank of China, the central bank. As the number of people who own bank cards grows, so does the amount of money charged to the cards. Nationwide, about 5 percent of purchases were done through bank cards, up 2.9 percent from three years earlier. The percentage was as high as 20 percent in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two economically-vibrant cities in South China's Guangdong Province, the statistics indicated. It took 13 years for the number of bank cards to grow from zero to 100 million. But the economic boom in the late 1990s made the figure increase rapidly in recent years. For example, from the beginning of 2001 to 2002, the number of bank cards in China grew 100 million to hit 406 million. Meanwhile, Chinese bank cards are becoming more international. They have been allowed to be used for payment in Singapore, Thailand and the Republic of Korea since January this year. |
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