3.6 Million Credit Cardholders

There were 3.6 million main credit card holders in Malaysia as of the end of June, according to Deputy Finance Minister Lee Chee Leong.

Based on numbers issued by the Department of Statistics for 2016, the figure accounted for 18% of the 20 million Malaysians aged between 20 and 74.

“As at end of June, the outstanding balance for credit cards was RM36.9 billion, of which 7.3% or RM2.7 billion was overdue balance.

“The remaining outstanding balance exceeding the repayment date not exceeding three months is 6.2%, valued at RM2.3 billion, while the balance that exceeded three months is 1.1% and valued at RM0.4 billion,” Lee said during the question-and-answer session at the Dewan Negara sitting here today.

He was replying to a question from Jaspal Singh on the percentage of the populace having credit cards, the amount of unpaid credit card debt and number of insolvency cases.

Lee said generally, 43.6% of card holders settled their credit card debts fully from January to June.

Another 43.6% paid at least 5% of the outstanding balance during the same period while the remaining 12.8% did not pay the outstanding balance of the minimum payment before or during the payment date.

On the number of insolvency cases, Lee said 845 individuals aged below 30 were declared bankrupt in the first half of the year.

Replying to a supplementary question from Jaspal pertaining to the ministry’s monitoring of online gambling cases involving the use of credit cards, Lee said Bank Negara Malaysia has issued guidelines requiring credit card issuers to restrict any transactions for such activities, identified by the business category code.