Technology 'a great accelerator' for China's credit card business

Starting from 2003, China’s credit card business has been on the track of fast development and technologies have been a big pusher and enabler for banks to deliver superb services to their customers, industry players said.

Driven by people’s growing appetite for consumer credit, the total number of credit cards issued in the past 16 years has reached 638 million, with the number of cards per person rising from 0.34 to 0.46 during the same period, latest data from China’s central bank showed.

Meanwhile, the sector has seen its service model upgraded with the help of evolving technologies, from the traditional labor-intensive manual customer service to offering intelligent customer service and becoming smart assistants to the card-holders.

China Merchants Bank (CMB), a joint-stock commercial lender, has been a frontrunner in the country’s lucrative credit card business and it has positioned itself as one of the leading credit card issuers by providing excellent services and experience for its clients.

The Shenzhen-based bank was the first among the industry to introduce a 24-hour customer service hotline in 2003 and began to operate a customer service center available 24/7 throughout the year since then.

Report from the China Banking Association pointed out that the number of banks’ customer service staff has shown a slight decrease in the past few years, as industry players are making transformations of their customer service operation mode by resorting to technologies and all media service channels.

For instance, CMB took the lead in opening its official WeChat account to create an intelligent micro-platform for their customers to ride on the wave of Mobile Internet. Businesses such as card opening, credit check and fast repayment can all be handled on the platform.

And in 2017, China Merchants Bank introduced a new customer service system supported by artificial intelligence technology.