The number of credit cards in circulation has decreased by 100 million from its peak, with three major banks collectively reducing new card issuance by 13 million in a single year. These figures illustrate the current "slimming down" trend within the credit card industry. This contraction is ongoing. According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of this year, institutions including Minsheng Bank, Bank of Communications, Agricultural Bank of China, Postal Savings Bank of China, China Guangfa Bank, Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank, and Zhejiang Rural Commercial United Bank have discontinued over 60 credit card products. Once highly sought-after co-branded cards and themed cards have become the primary focus of these discontinuations. Faced with a saturated growth market and pressure on asset quality, banks are actively transforming their strategies. They are phasing out inefficient card varieties while simultaneously strengthening in-house debt collection systems and the transfer of non-performing assets. Industry experts believe the credit card business is moving away from a focus on scale and is now fully engaged in competition for existing customers. Future core competitiveness will hinge on sophisticated operations and robust risk management capabilities.
The number of credit cards has decreased by 100 million compared to the peak period. The Agricultural Bank of China Credit Card Center announced it will stop issuing its UnionPay and Mastercard-branded Youth Cards for university students effective May 15, 2026. Prior to this, the bank had already discontinued its Tianzhu Mountain Credit Card on April 16. Similarly, on April 2, Minsheng Bank's Credit Card Center issued a notice discontinuing 11 credit card products, including the Minsheng-Amap Riding the Wind Co-branded Card and the Minsheng-DuoDian Co-branded Card, with related benefits expiring concurrently. Based on incomplete statistics, as of April 20, institutions including Minsheng Bank, Bank of Communications, Agricultural Bank of China, Postal Savings Bank of China, China Guangfa Bank, Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank, and Zhejiang Rural Commercial United Bank have halted issuance of over 60 credit card models this year. The discontinued products are predominantly co-branded cards and themed credit cards. Examples include the Bank of Communications' recently discontinued UnionPay Gundam Themed Card and the Rizhao Wey Auto Themed Card, as well as China Guangfa Bank's discontinued co-branded cards with Flight Manager and High-Speed Rail Manager.
The contraction in credit card scale is a clear trend. Data from the People's Bank of China's 2025 payment system report shows that by the end of 2025, the number of credit cards and combo cards nationwide was 696 million, a decrease of 31 million from the end of the previous year. Taking a longer view, the number reached a historical peak of 807 million at the end of the third quarter of 2022, meaning it has since accumulated a reduction of 111 million cards. Annual report data from listed banks further confirms this trend. Wind data shows that, as of April 21, 19 out of 42 A-share listed banks have disclosed credit card-related data. By the end of 2025, the total credit card loan balance for these 19 banks was 7.3 trillion yuan, shrinking by 0.45 trillion yuan from the end of the previous year. Among the large state-owned banks, China Construction Bank is currently the only one with a credit card loan balance exceeding one trillion yuan, standing at 1.01 trillion yuan at the end of 2025. However, this represented a decrease of 56.783 billion yuan, or 5.33%, barely maintaining the trillion-yuan level. They were followed by Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Bank of Communications with balances of 850.087 billion yuan, 697.535 billion yuan, and 531.348 billion yuan, respectively, reflecting year-on-year declines of 1.02%, 10.04%, and 1.31%. Among the five banks that disclosed new card issuance figures, three showed declines. The new card issuance volumes for Bank of Communications, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and China Construction Bank were -5.0159 million, -5 million, and -3 million cards, respectively, amounting to a combined reduction of 13 million cards from just these three institutions.
The logic of the credit card industry is shifting. The large-scale "slimming down" reflects a fundamental change in the industry's dynamics. In recent years, the non-performing loan ratio for bank credit cards has been gradually climbing. Central bank data indicates that the total amount of credit card credit overdue for more than six months skyrocketed from 3.377 billion yuan at the end of 2008 to 123.964 billion yuan by the end of 2024, a nearly 36-fold increase over 16 years. In 2024 alone, this figure grew by 26.31% year-on-year. Wind data shows that among the 10 banks that disclosed their credit card NPL ratios, six experienced an increase, with some banks seeing rapid acceleration. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's credit card NPL ratio reached 4.61% in 2025, up 1.11 percentage points year-on-year; Minsheng Bank's ratio reached 3.87%, up 0.59 percentage points. Notably, Dongguan Rural Commercial Bank's credit card透支不良率 was as high as 11.03% at the end of 2025, an increase of 5.01 percentage points from the end of 2024. Zhou Yiqin, founder of Shanghai Guantiao Information Consulting Center, stated that with rising NPL ratios and declining asset quality, banks are forced to eliminate inefficient products. This further drives the credit card business to transition from "scale expansion" to the meticulous cultivation of existing customers.
Multiple factors lie behind the rising NPL ratio. A veteran in the credit card industry pointed out that the root cause is the decline in actual income and weakened repayment capacity of some customers. Additionally, the risk of overlapping debts continues to intensify. Some customers reliant on online lending or disguised high-interest loans are experiencing breaks in their funding chains, making it difficult to sustain the cycle of borrowing new loans to repay old ones. City and rural commercial banks that expanded aggressively before 2022 and had relatively weak risk control systems have been hit the hardest. Wang Jian, chief banking analyst at Guosen Securities, noted in a research report that the industry underwent a round of NPL exposure during the pandemic, leading banks to lower their risk appetite. Since 2024, the default rate has shown a downward trend; although it fluctuated in 2025, the central level did not rise significantly. In Wang Jian's view, a key factor triggering this round of retail NPL exposure was the massive issuance by banks in previous years and the consequent insufficiency in risk control. Against the backdrop of gradually emerging retail bad loans, banks are now exercising much greater caution in their lending. Furthermore, the competitiveness of certain card types, such as co-branded cards, is limited. "A wave of increased issuance is inevitably followed by a wave of discontinuations," commented an industry insider. Co-branded cards are highly dependent on the popularity of a specific IP; once the cooperation expires or the IP loses popularity, their appeal diminishes rapidly. Maintaining copyrights, operations, and benefits requires continuous investment. When card activity is low, discontinuing the product becomes the most economical choice.
Looking ahead, the competitive strategies of bank credit cards are quietly changing. Zhou Yiqin indicated that the future core competitiveness of credit cards will shift towards customer segment operations. This involves deep management of high-value customer segments, achieving differentiated credit granting through precise data profiling, enhancing user activity and asset quality, and integrating with mobile banking ecosystems to reduce operational costs and strengthen service stickiness. Some banks are choosing to directly reduce operational costs. For instance, Bank of China recently announced plans to include litigation fees, attorney fees, and enforcement costs in overdue credit card statements starting September 14, 2025. This will be piloted in Shanghai before being gradually promoted to other regions.
With limited room for growth in the incremental market, many banks are instead focusing on reducing their credit card NPL ratios. Adjustments have been observed in banks' post-lending disposal methods for credit cards. In 2025, several financial institutions, including Sanxiang Bank, China Everbright Bank, and Huaxia Bank, publicly recruited debt collection personnel. Unlike previous practices of outsourcing to third-party agencies, this time banks are recruiting directly, setting higher requirements for education and experience, with most positions explicitly requiring candidates to possess capabilities in data analysis, fintech, and related professional skills. Simultaneously, the banking industry is accelerating the bulk transfer of non-performing credit card assets. In the first quarter of 2025, the amount of non-performing credit card loans transferred through the Banking Asset Registration and Circulation Center reached 5.19 billion yuan, showing a significant increase from previous periods.
It is worth noting that the pressure from non-performing credit card disposal may ease recently. According to statistics from the Banking Asset Registration and Circulation Center on non-performing loan transfer business, in the first quarter of 2026, credit card loans accounted for 4.1% of the composition of transferred non-performing loans, whereas in the same period last year, this proportion was 25.0%.
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