Most Beijing college students want a credit card
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-07-26 14:25

Most college students in the Chinese capital still pay in cash, but many say they need a credit card, according to a study of student money management and using credit cards by Master Card International.

The survey was conducted by the company on 600 undergraduate students from Peking University, Tsinghua University, The University of International Business and Economics and Beijing Foreign Language Studies University.

In the survey, 30.3 percent of the students owned credit cards,of which more than 70 percent spent on average less than 500 yuan (about 61 US dollars) each month.

Fifty percent of the students think it necessary to apply for a personal credit card so as to manage money, pay in advance and use the card in case of emergency.

Students with part-time jobs are more likely to apply for a personal credit card and they prefer topay by credit card, the survey found. Still, 94.7 percent of the students pay mainly by cash, it says.

Ninety percent of these undergraduate students are financially supported by their parents, and the students have an average monthly income of about 608 yuan (about 74 US dollars).

They spendnearly half of their money on food, while the other half is spent equally on studying, entertainment and the purchase of fashionablearticles, according to the survey.

Chinese banks began to issue credit cards in 1986. Statistics from China Unionpay show that credit cards in use numbered 762 million in 2004, up 17.4 percent year-on-year. The trade volume byusing credit cards exceeded 26 trillion yuan (about 3.2 trillion US dollars), up 47 percent. A total of 570 million deals were madewith credit cards, up 28.9 percent.

Statistics from the People's Bank of China show that the consumption of the Chinese residents by using credit cards accounted for two percent of the total in 2001, much lower than inadvanced countries, but it rose to five percent in 2004.In big cities like Beijing and Shanghai,the proportion stood at 20 percent.

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