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Sounds like about 2 billion credit cards have been issued. Most of them are to people under 35 years old. About 92% of those are actually debit cards though.
While I haven't been to china since 2010 I can say that credit cards were almost non-existent. It was still basically a cash society.
Banks are a paint do business with, they never got into the checking account thing and the postal service delivers to workplaces not home residences.
All my relatives cell phones were using plug in cards that they purchased at phone shops and did phone business at the stalls or shops.
Of course China is changing fast and in some of the major cities this may be a different situation.
Sounds like about 2 billion credit cards have been issued. Most of them are to people under 35 years old. About 92% of those are actually debit cards though.
i think mostly big city people have CC. I went to Shenzhen, I see many people have CC, but don't like to use it. peasants probably don't have CC. that's like more than 50% of Chinese.
Last edited by spotlesseden; 11-01-2012 at 01:09 PM..
Nowadays, most Chinese use credit or debit cards, especially when they do some online shopping, but I don't think they use the same systems like we do in the States, ie visa, master... they have their own system, called Union Pay or something, which is slightly different as I heard.
Most third world countries are pretty cash based for most transactions.
Partly for tax reasons(all asian business cheat on taxes)
Many vendors either don't have the ability for cards or actually HIDE their machine.
Want to get chewed out in Asia? Ask to pay for card for everything. Some will actually physically drag you to the nearest ATM.
I don't know the stats on card ownership....
Most vendors in chinese cities including taxi drivers now receive money by mobile phone apps. Passengers no longer need tickets to ride trains. Cash is no longer the main payment method. Debit cards are still more than credit cards in china because banks are stricter approving credit card applications.
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