BEIJING -- Fifty-five financial institutions in China had issued 330 million bank cards by June of this year, sources with the People's Bank of China ( PBOC) told the People's Daily newspaper.
That number represents an 18.4 percent increase from the same period of last year.
Financial institutions that had opened bank card businesses include four state-owned commercial banks, 10 shareholding commercial banks, one post office, 29 city commercial banks and 11 rural credit unions, according to the People's Daily report.
Currently, China has 129,000 banking outlets handling bank card businesses, and there are 49,000 ATMs across the country. Trade volume of bank cards totaled 4.85 trillion yuan or an increase of 224 percent from a year ago.
With China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), PBOC officials told the People's Daily that the central bank and all commercial banks will implement a series of measures to promote the interoperability of the country's different bank cards.
