Lunar New Year holiday sparks massive credit card use

Along with its noisy festivities, the Lunar New Year can also be counted on for one recurring event: more credit card use.

This year’s Lunar New Year in January confirmed that expectation with total credit-card receivables rising 10.9% to HK$100.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The Monetary Authority said the increase was due to year-end festive spending and the payment of the salaries tax using credit cards. The total number of credit-card accounts increased 1.9% to 15.1 million.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, rose 8.3%.

The charge-off amount declined 4.5% to $360 million, or 0.4% of average receivables, at the end of December.

The quarterly annualised charge-off ratio fell to 1.51% compared with 1.7% in the previous quarter.

The amount of rescheduled receivables transferred outside the surveyed institutions' credit-card portfolios decreased to $67 million from $87 million in the previous quarter.

The delinquent amount increased to $188 million at the end of December from $166 million at the end of September.