China's bank cards up 32.6% in 2007

China had issued 1.5 billion bank cards by the end of 2007, a growth of 32.6 percent on the same period of the previous year, according to the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

The total included 1.41 billion debit cards, up 30.4 percent, and 90.26 million credit cards, up 82 percent.

Last year witnessed bank-card-based consumption account for 21.9 percent of China's total annual retail sales, up 4.9 percentage points year-on-year.