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China's largest State-owned commercial bank, by total asset, announced on Monday that it has become the largest issuer of of credit cards in Asia-Pacific.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC) issued more than 100 million credit cards by Dec 17, with annual expenditure worth 1.88 trillion yuan ($302 billion), 84 times the amount in 2002, when the first credit card was issued. The bank issued 88.05 million credit cards by the end of 2013. The outstanding loans of its credit cards amounted to 366.2 billion yuan.
According to the People's Bank of China, the nation's central bank, a total of 436 million credit cards had been issued in the country by the end of the third quarter.
Nearly one out of every four credit cards was issued by ICBC. It has 66.97 million customers using its credit cards.
