China has more than 1.3 billion bank cards

More than 1.3 billion bank cards, or roughly one for every person, have been issued by Chinese banks by September this year.

According to China UnionPay President Xu Luode, as more people opt to use plastic over cash, payments using bank cards accounted for more than 18 percent of total retail sales in the first nine months of 2007.

Xinhua reports that China had 183 banks issuing cards that could be used at 650,000 retail outlets and 120,000 automatic teller machines.

The same report said that large national banks still dominated the bank card market, with regional financial institutions controlling just nine percent of the market.

China UnionPay, China's only bank card network operator, planned to complete its national payment network next year by setting up branches in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions as well as Gansu and Qinghai provinces, the Xinhua report said.