Economic Herald reporter Dai Yue
With the release of the 2021 annual reports of listed banks, the bank credit card report cards that everyone is paying more attention to are gradually revealed.
Economic Herald reporter noticed that the rebound in consumer demand has driven up the demand for credit cards. The number of credit card issuances has been slowly increasing last year. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is far ahead in the number of card issuances, China Merchants Bank still "occupies" the "big brother" position in credit card consumption... In the current competition of credit cards from the incremental market to the existing market, focusing on high-quality consumer groups and raising the credit card entry threshold have become the choices of many banks.
So, how did banks perform in terms of credit cards last year? Who is better?
ICBC issues the most cards
The scale of card issuance is one of the important indicators for measuring the credit card business.
Economic Herald reporters counted the use of credit cards by 6 major state-owned banks and 9 joint-stock banks. In terms of cumulative card issuance, the number of cards issued by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, and CITIC Bank exceeded 100 million.
ICBC still ranks first among major banks in terms of cumulative card issuance volume. Its annual report shows that at the end of 2021, the number of bank cards issued was 1.169 billion, an increase of 41.7 million from the end of the previous year, including 1.006 billion debit cards and 163 million credit cards. The growth rate of the number of ICBC credit cards (1.87%) slowed down, ranking behind other banks.
Among joint-stock banks, China Merchants Bank ranks first with 102.416 million cards issued, followed by China CITIC Bank with 101.3239 million cards issued.
The fastest growing rate of cumulative card issuance is Bohai Bank , with a growth rate of 69.47%. Its card issuance volume is the lowest among the 15 banks, at 09 million.
Judging from the growth rate of card issuance volume, the growth rate of card issuance volume of 15 banks has generally slowed down, and most of them have not exceeded 10%. Bohai Bank, Hengfeng Bank , Postal Savings Bank 3 banks have a growth rate of more than 10%, while China Merchants Bank, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Bank of Communications , Zheshang Bank , and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have not exceeded 3%.
| China Merchants Bank has the largest consumption limit
| In terms of credit card consumption amount, China Merchants Bank is truly the number one, and is the only bank among the 15 banks with more than 4 trillion.
"It is indeed better to use China Merchants Bank Credit Card , and there are many discounts. On Wednesday, many merchants offered half-price purchases using China Merchants Bank Credit Card , and now there is another 50% off event every day, which is very cost-effective." A China Merchants Bank credit card user told the Economic Herald reporter.
In addition, the credit card consumption amount of China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, Ping An Bank is between 3 trillion and 4 trillion, the credit card consumption amount of ICBC is between 2 trillion and 3 trillion, and the credit card consumption amount below 2 trillion is Bank of China, Postal Savings Bank, and Zheshang Bank.
It is worth noting that Hengfeng Bank’s credit card consumption amount grew the fastest, achieving 53.08%, which is not unrelated to the rapid growth of its credit card issuance volume.
At the same time, the credit card consumption amount of Minsheng Bank, China CITIC Bank and Postal Savings Bank achieved an increase of more than 14%. China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank, which have a high base of credit card consumption, also grew at a faster rate, 9.73% and 9.8% respectively.
| China Construction Bank has the largest overdraft balance
From the perspective of credit card overdraft balance, China Construction Bank has the largest overdraft balance, 896.222 billion yuan, far ahead of the other five major state-owned banks, and has been ranked first in the industry for five consecutive years. In 2021, China Construction Bank issued 147 million yuan in cards, second only to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Like China Construction Bank, China Merchants Bank’s credit card overdraft balance exceeded 800 billion yuan, which was 840.301 billion yuan. The Economic Herald reporter noticed that China Merchants Bank is also very active in installment promotion.Open the China Merchants Bank Credit Card App, and a pop-up window with "50% off on installment fees" will come into view.
At the same time, in terms of credit card overdraft balance growth, Postal Savings Bank increased by 20.9% compared with the previous year, and Agricultural Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, and Ping An Bank all achieved double-digit growth. The credit card overdraft amount of Agricultural Bank of China has indeed grown rapidly in recent years, from 380.719 billion in 2018 to 626.783 billion, an increase of nearly 250 billion yuan in four years.
Optimizing the structure of credit card customer groups
The Economic Herald reporter noticed that most banks' non-performing loan ratios have declined to varying degrees, but the balance of non-performing loans has basically shown an upward trend. Judging from the disclosed non-performing ratios, the non-performing credit card ratios of China Minsheng Bank, Bank of Communications, Ping An Bank, Postal Savings Bank, China Merchants Bank, China CITIC Bank, China Construction Bank, and Agricultural Bank of China will decrease in 2021. It can be seen that the bank has strengthened the refined operation of the cardholder customer base and further increased its efforts to manage credit card risks .
Currently, credit cards are gradually shifting from the incremental market to the existing market. The difficulty in the transformation is how to activate existing users, and refined operations have become the focus of each card issuer. Judging from the layout of bank credit cards in 2021, young customer groups and "new citizen" groups have become one of the focuses of banks' efforts.
Everbright Bank Vice President Qi Ye said at the performance conference that high-quality customers accounted for 65% of newly introduced customers in 2021, a significant increase from the beginning of the year, and online transaction volume increased by more than 40% year-on-year. "We are moving forward. Focus on high-quality consumer groups, iteratively upgrade key products, improve the card usage environment of online Internet platforms and offline consumption scenarios, and improve the quality and efficiency of customer acquisition and retention. "
At the same time, various banks continue to strengthen the connection between credit cards and customer groups and activate the existing credit card market. As competition for existing products intensifies, tapping existing users and optimizing the customer group structure have become the keys to the transformation of the credit card business.
"At present, the quality of the credit card customer base has been significantly adjusted." Wang Jianzhong, vice president of China Merchants Bank, said at the performance meeting that China Merchants Bank has implemented a low-price policy for some customer groups, with interest rates ranging from 6% to 9%, and has achieved certain results.
ICBC stated in its annual report that it will accelerate the construction of the ICBC e-life platform and promote the integration innovation of "credit card + digital renminbi ".
