Rural bank enters credit card market
7/6/2008
SHANGHAI Rural Commercial Bank plans to issue credit cards later this year, the bank told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
The bank was set up in August 2005 by merging rural cooperatives in the city. The bank now has 328 outlets in Shanghai, with 240 outlets outside the outer ring road.
Hou Funing, president of the rural bank, said earlier this year that the bank will offer more services like online banking to bolster its retail banking.
The rural bank is a late-comer into the credit card market, which is forecast to become the second most-lucrative retail banking product after mortgages by 2013. Profit then is likely to total 13 billion yuan, and account for 22 percent of banks' total retail banking profits, McKinsey & Co said earlier.
That's why overseas banks including Bank of East Asia and Standard Chartered Bank have showed interest in issuing credit cards on the Chinese mainland.
China had more than 71.62 million credit cards in circulation at the end of 2007, up 144 percent since the previous year, said the People's Bank of China.
Most banks are now grabbing market share rather than putting profitability as the current target.
China Merchants Bank is the first bank in China to make profits on the business.
News Source : http://www.shanghaidaily.com/ |
