The use of credit cards continued to increase in the third quarter of the year, with receivables going up by 17.3 percent annually at the end of September and by 1.5 percent from the previous quarter.
Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) revealed that total credit card receivables reached P124.4 billion in the third quarter of the year, including receivables of universal and commercial banks (UKBs), thrift banks and credit card subsidiaries.
Last year, BSP data indicated that total receivables in the third quarter reached P106 billion. In the second quarter of this year, on the other hand, the total was recorded at P122.5 billion.
The BSP reported that despite the increase, the ratio of credit card receivables to the total loan portfolio of banks actually dropped to 5.2 percent from 5.3 percent in the previous quarter and from 5.5 percent last year because the total portfolio was expanding faster.
The BSP said UKBs accounted for 82.6 percent or P102.7 billion of total receivables while credit card subsidiaries accounted for 13.3 percent or P16.6 billion. Non-linked thrift banks accounted for the remaining 4.1 percent or P5.1 billion.
But the BSP reported an improvement in the quality of credit card receivables this year, with total past-due receivables accounting for 11.7 percent compared with 14.3 percent over the same period last year.
The BSP said the slight quarterly increase was due to the 2.8-percent increase in non-performing credit card receivables which outpaced the increase in total receivables.
The BSP said the total level of non-performing receivables amounted to P14.6 percent compared with P14.2 billion in the previous quarter. Last year, past due receivables amounted to P15.2 billion over the same period.
The BSP has also aligned its definition of past-due credit card receivables, adopting the term ‘non-performing” instead of “past-due”.
But the BSP said the proportion of non-performing credit card receivables to the total non-performing loan portfolio of banks stood at 10.4 percent — an improvement from 10.6 percent in the previous quarter.
Credit card use became even more widespread this year, picking up the momentum from 2007 although the BSP said the growth had slowed down somewhat.