According to the report released by the People’s Bank of China last Tuesday (December 2), the total number of credit cards and debit-credit combo cards by the end of the third quarter of 2025 decreased by 8 million to 7.07 billion compared to 7.15 billion at the end of the second quarter. This marks a cumulative reduction of about 100 million cards over the past three years, showing a continuous downward trend for 12 consecutive quarters since hitting a historical peak of 8.07 billion cards in the same period of 2022.
This decline in credit card numbers is reflective of the increasing precautionary savings by residents and a weakening consumption momentum, as well as the active contraction of inefficient card issuance by banks under strong regulatory supervision and asset quality pressure, as reported by the Economic Observer Network.
Looking at the operational situation of various banks, the credit card business has significantly shrunk. Based on data from Wind and financial reports of various banks, the total credit card loan balance of China’s state-owned and commercial banks was about 7.5 trillion yuan in the first half of 2025, a decrease of nearly 600 billion yuan from the end of 2024. Meanwhile, the total credit card consumption amount decreased by about 8% year-on-year, with China Merchants Bank experiencing an 8.54% drop in transaction volume and Bank of Communications seeing a decline of up to 11%.
A report by the global accounting firm Deloitte revealed that as of the end of June 2025, the average non-performing loan ratio of credit cards for 12 banks in China was 2.40%, compared to 2.33% at the end of 2024. Many banks have been actively transferring overdue assets in batches through the Credit Reference Center, with Postal Savings Bank of China, Ping An Bank, China Minsheng Bank, and China Construction Bank Hunan Branch planning to transfer non-payment of principal and interest exceeding 7.2 billion yuan in November alone.
Last May, China Securities Journal cited Liao Zhiming, a banking industry analyst at China Merchants Securities, who mentioned that the penetration rate of credit card business in China faces greater challenges in increasing difficulty, with significantly rising costs to acquire new customers and fierce industry competition, making it harder for new entries.
Simultaneously, a significant drop in the credit card usage rate among young people is also a key factor contributing to the sharp contraction in the credit card market. A previous report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences revealed that the credit card usage rate among post-90s plummeted by 29 percentage points over five years. In street interviews, young people bluntly stated their reasons, with one mentioning, “A penalty of 1,000 yuan for being two days overdue is more brutal than loan sharks.”