Hong Kong credit card receivables up 12% to $87.5bn

Year-end spending and payment of salaries tax boosted credit card use.

Total credit-card receivables grew by 12% to $87.5 billion in the fourth quarter, after increasing 5% in the third quarter, the Monetary Authority announced on Monday.

It said the increase was largely due to year-end festive spending and the payment of salaries tax by credit card.

The total number of credit-card accounts increased 2.8% to 13.8 million.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, fell 1.2% to $19.1 billion at the end of December.

The charge-off amount declined by 11.5% in the fourth quarter to $324 million or around 0.4% of average receivables at the end of December. The quarterly annualised charge-off ratio fell to 1.56% from 1.92% in the previous quarter, as stated in the Monetary Authority report.

The amount of rescheduled receivables transferred outside the surveyed institutions' credit-card portfolios decreased to $104 million from $144 million in the previous quarter.

The delinquency ratio declined to 0.2% from 0.22% at the end of September despite an increase of the delinquent amount of 1.2% to $173 million at the end of December.

The combined delinquent and rescheduled ratio declined to 0.28% at the end of December from 0.32% at the end of September.