Chinese bank card holders spent almost 34 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) in inter-bank card transactions during National Day "Golden Week", 52 percent up on a year ago.

 

The figure covers 68 million operations during the week-long holiday, said China UnionPay Co., which operates China's inter-bank card networking business.

 

Bank cards carrying a UnionPay logo, including those issued by the country's major banks, can be used to make payments or withdraw cash from ATMs (automatic teller machines) owned by other member banks in and outside places of residence.

 

During the seven-day holiday ending Saturday, travelers from the Chinese mainland spent over 700 million yuan (US$88.6 million) on about 215,000 operations in Hong Kong, Macao and other overseas regions using UnionPay cards.

 

Experts said that the figures show that more and more Chinese consumers are adopting bank cards to pay for big-ticket items, restaurant meals and flight tickets.

 

Chinese residents used to have to carry large sums of cash when they went shopping because there were no bank cards. When the cards were first issued, they could only be used to withdraw cash from ATMs owned by the issuing bank.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2006)