(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-14 16:04

BEIJING -- Bank card transactions in China rose 59.7 percent year-on-year during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, according to China Unionpay, a national bank card network operator.

Consumers spent 29.4 billion yuan (4.03 billion US dollars) with their cards during the biggest holiday of the year, China Unionpay said in a statement on its web site.

There were 66.4 million transactions, up 49.7 percent, mostly in restaurants, supermarkets, household appliance stores and entertainment venues.

Card payments accounted for 11.5 percent of domestic retail sales during the holiday period.

Domestic retail sales rose 16 percent to 255 billion yuan over the holidays, despite the worst winter storms in half a century.

As more affluent Chinese opted to spend the holiday overseas, their bank card spending surged 42.6 percent to 1.6 billion yuan over 540,000 transactions.

That would indicate that consumers spent 2,964 yuan per transaction overseas, nearly seven times the domestic amount.

China has more than 180 banking institutions issuing cards that can be used at 740,000 outlets and 120,000 automatic teller machines nationwide, according to China Unionpay data. The number of cards reached 1.3 billion by the end of last September, roughly equivalent to the country's total population.

China Unionpay, which has sole responsibility for the Chinese mainland's bank card transactions, said that it planned to complete its national payment network this year by setting up branches in remote, northwestern regions such as Xinjiang and Ningxia.

The company has extended its network to 26 countries and regions, where the cards are accepted by 125,000 outlets and 365,000 ATMs.