Active credit cards surge over 50,000 by end - July

25 September 2012 03:11 am Views - 4273

The total active credit cards within Sri Lanka increased by 55,864 between December 2011 and July of this year, according to provisional figures from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Currently, a total of 918,216 credit cards are active in Sri Lanka, of which, 60,766 are only accepted locally, whilst a further 857,750 are accepted globally.

The total outstanding balance on active credit cards in Sri Lanka, as at July 31 was recorded at Rs.40.5 billion, as compared with Rs.37.6 billion at the end of last year.

The majority of the outstanding balance was with globally accepted credit cards, at a total of Rs.39.3 billion, as compared with Rs.36.5 billion in 2011, whilst cards only accepted locally recorded an outstanding balance of Rs.1.1 billion.

According to analysts, the number of credit cards in circulation may reach one million mark by the first quarter of 2013.