BEIJING - China issued 2.81 billion bank cards as of the end of the third quarter, up 4.9 percent from the end of June, China's central bank said Thursday.

The country issued 2.54 billion debit cards as of the end of September, up 17.6 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 4.2 percentage points higher than that posted during the same period last year, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.

Some 268 million credit cards were issued by the end of September, up 3.9 percent from the end of June, the statement said.

Credit card loans that were more than six months overdue totaled 10.65 billion yuan ($1.68 billion) by the end of the third quarter, up 723 million yuan from the end of June, the statement said.