As a retail ballast, credit card business has always been the focus of major banks. In recent years, affected by the epidemic and other factors, the growth rate of bank credit card business has slowed down significantly, and the non-performing rate has also increased. However, this situation will change slightly in 2021.
The reporter combed the annual reports of 15 banks with large credit card business (including 6 state-owned banks and 9 joint-stock banks) and found that the growth of credit card scale was still at a low level in the past year, but the asset quality improved, and the non-performing rate generally decreased compared with 2020. Among the banks that disclosed non-performing indicators, the non-performing rate of ABC’s credit card was the lowest, 0.99% China Minsheng Banking Corp.Ltd(600016) credit card has the highest non-performing rate of 2.95%.
The consensus in the industry is that the current credit card industry has entered a new stage of game stock from the previous scale expansion. “The trend of mining from card issuance driven to card driven stock customers has been very clear.” Dong Zheng, a senior credit card official, told reporters that this requires financial institutions to change the previous extensive development model and focus on fine development. Looking forward to 2022, the pressure and opportunities of the credit card market coexist, but the phenomenon of industry differentiation will further intensify, which will force some banks to accelerate their transformation.
card issuing and transaction growth slowed down
After the low-speed growth in 2020, the credit card business of many banks continued the previous trend in 2021. Although the number of cards issued recovered, the growth rate further decreased. The data previously released by the central bank also showed that by the end of 2021, there were 800 million credit cards and integrated lending cards in China, a year-on-year increase of 2.83%, significantly lower than last year’s 4.26%, the lowest growth rate in recent six years.
For this new low, the industry is not surprised. On the one hand, due to the repeated superposition of factors such as the slowdown of China’s macroeconomic growth, banks tend to adopt a relatively stable and low volatility business strategy; On the other hand, the credit card market has entered a “relatively saturated” state, and the phenomenon of “multi head credit” of credit card users is more common, resulting in more cautious business development of card issuers.
“This is consistent with the regulatory orientation.” Dong Zheng told reporters that the regulatory authorities had issued relevant policies for many times, requiring the issuing banks to implement the “rigid deduction” policy, including increasingly strict control over the phenomenon of one person with multiple cards and high amount / multiple credit, which limited the expansion of the scale of credit cards to a certain extent.
Specifically, according to the annual report, the amount of card issuance of most banks maintained growth in 2021, but the growth rate decreased compared with that in 2020. Among the 15 banks, only 6 achieved an increase in growth rate, namely Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Limited(601398) , Guangdong Development Bank, Bank Of Communications Co.Ltd(601328) , Ping An Bank Co.Ltd(000001) , Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) and Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) .
Among the large state-owned banks, Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Limited(601398) has the largest cumulative number of card issuance, reaching 163 million by the end of 2021, but the growth rate is relatively low, at 1.87%; In contrast, Postal Savings Bank Of China Co.Ltd(601658) has a high growth rate. After the credit card franchise was approved to open in April last year, the bank’s credit card business developed rapidly. In 2021, 8022200 new cards were issued and 41558700 balance cards were issued, an increase of 12.93% over the end of the previous year.
Among the joint-stock banks, China Merchants Bank issued the highest number of cards among the nine joint-stock banks. By the end of 2021, the number of circulating cards of the bank had reached 102 million, an increase of 2.9% over the end of the previous year, and the number of circulating households was 697394 million, an increase of 4.54% over the end of the previous year.
Followed by China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) and Guangdong Development Bank, both of which issued more than 100 million cards. It is worth noting that this is the first time that the two banks issued more than hundreds of millions of cards. According to the data, by the end of 2021, the total number of CITIC credit cards issued was 1013239 million, an increase of 9.4% over the end of the previous year; GF issued a total of 100.77 million credit cards, an increase of 12.79% over the end of the previous year.
In contrast, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) credit cards have the lowest cumulative issuance volume, only 31 million, but their year-on-year growth rate is the highest, reaching 16.11%, and the new issuance volume is 4.3522 million; Apart from Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) , Guangdong Development Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) , with a double-digit year-on-year growth rate, had issued 484345 million credit cards by the end of the reporting period, an increase of 10.78% over the end of the previous year, reversing the previous decline.
On the whole, whether large state-owned banks or joint-stock banks, the sluggish growth of credit card issuance scale is more obvious. “Some card issuing banks regard credit card business as an important starting point for retail business, but most card issuing banks have encountered a ‘Crossroads’ of development.” Dong Zheng told reporters.
Although the growth rate of card issuance slowed down, the growth of credit card loan balance was more objective. Many institutions generally achieved growth, and the growth rate was higher than that in 2020. Among them, China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) credit card loan balance ranked first, reaching 896222 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.54%; Followed by China Merchants Bank Co.Ltd(600036) , breaking 840 billion yuan; The balance of postal savings credit card loans grew the highest year-on-year, reaching 20.9%.
In addition, from the perspective of credit card transaction volume, the industry differentiation is more obvious China Merchants Bank Co.Ltd(600036) and Ping An Bank Co.Ltd(000001) as two banks with outstanding performance in retail business, their credit card transaction volume remained ahead, with 4.76 trillion and 3.79 trillion respectively The growth rates of Postal Savings Bank Of China Co.Ltd(601658) , Industrial Bank Co.Ltd(601166) and China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) were in the forefront, all exceeding 14% Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Limited(601398) , China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) , Bank Of China Limited(601988) and Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) decreased slightly.
In terms of credit card income, only some banks disclosed relevant data. By the end of 2021, the credit card income of China Merchants Bank had reached 86.754 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 5.13%. The total amount and growth rate were both leading. It was also the only bank to achieve positive growth. Among them, the interest income of the bank was 59.645 billion yuan, an increase of 5.86%; Non interest income was 27.109 billion yuan, an increase of 3.56%.
In contrast, China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) , China Everbright Bank Company Limited Co.Ltd(601818) , Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) and Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) credit card revenue growth decreased in varying degrees, especially Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) . Last year, the total credit card revenue was 38.079 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.33%, which has decreased for three consecutive years.
asset quality improved
While the growth rate of card issuance and transaction volume slowed down, a good sign for the credit card industry is that the previously rising non-performing indicators declined.
The reporter learned that since last year, the issuing banks have vigorously rectified the risks of credit card business according to the regulatory requirements, increased the debt collection force, and actively explored and tried new non-performing disposal paths such as asset securitization and batch transfer; At the same time, implement “customer group optimization” and strictly control high-risk customer groups.
Specifically, among the 12 banks that disclosed non-performing indicators, only the non-performing rates of Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Limited(601398) and Industrial Bank Co.Ltd(601166) credit cards increased, and the rest fell to varying degrees.
Among them, Agricultural Bank Of China Limited(601288) has the lowest non-performing rate. As of the end of last year, the non-performing rate was 0.99%, a decrease of 0.56 percentage points compared with the end of the previous year, with the largest decrease China Minsheng Banking Corp.Ltd(600016) NPL rate is the highest, 2.95%, but it has decreased by 0.33 percentage points compared with the end of the previous year, and the balance of NPL has also decreased.
In addition, as of the end of last year, the non-performing rate of ICBC credit card was 1.9%, a slight increase of 0.01 percentage points over the end of the previous year Industrial Bank Co.Ltd(601166) non performing rate was 2.29%, rebounding 0.13 percentage points over the end of the previous year.
In response to this rebound, Zou Jimin, general manager of Industrial Bank Co.Ltd(601166) risk management department, said at the previous performance conference that “according to our resources, we can fully achieve the ‘double reduction’ of bad credit cards”. The initiative to slow down the disposal is mainly due to two factors. One is to support covid-19 epidemic prevention and control, protect consumers’ rights and interests, and appropriately slow down the disposal of customers affected by the epidemic, Encourage customers to take the initiative to repay after the epidemic is alleviated; Second, considering that the recognition standard of overdue credit cards tends to be strict in 2021, it is necessary to give customers a certain adaptation period.
Zhu Jiangtao, vice president of China Merchants Bank, also mentioned at the press conference that the asset quality last year was affected by two factors: first, the recognition standard of bad personal loans and credit cards last year was advanced from 90 days overdue to 60 days overdue; Second, according to the regulatory requirements, the identification of the overdue time point of the credit card is set as the repayment deadline of this bill from the next bill date, with an average advance of about 8 days. “If these two factors are restored, whether personal loans or credit cards, the amount rate of attention and overdue is lower than that at the beginning of the year, and the real risk shows a downward trend.”
Looking forward to the future, some insiders believe that the repeated epidemic will have a short-term impact on Residents’ employment, income and consumption. Superimposed on factors such as bank credit card institutions to further accelerate the identification and repayment of CO debt risk, it is expected that there is still a certain pressure on the short-term risk control of consumer credit business.
This also puts forward higher requirements for the business ability of credit card institutions. At the same time, the notice on further promoting the standardized and healthy development of credit card business (Exposure Draft) issued by the supervision at the end of last year put forward rectification requirements for credit card business from many aspects, and “forced” the transformation of credit card business from extensive development to fine management.
A senior banking practitioner told reporters that the credit card market has entered the intensive cultivation mode of white hot competition, and the types of products are becoming more and more diverse, but the products are also highly homogeneous. For institutions, it is worth thinking about how to create their own characteristics to stand out; Moreover, the sinking of customer base, online application and complex scenes also test the bank’s risk control ability.
In this regard, some institutions said that they would strengthen customer life cycle management and implement differentiated customer business strategy. For example, deepen the online marketing of cardholders, strengthen the dynamic management of multiple customers, and strengthen the dynamic management of multiple customers. Deeply cultivate the digital and intelligent operation of phased business, deepen the application of big data, and form a complete business closed loop of precision marketing and platform empowerment.
