MACAO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The number of personal credit cards issued by banks in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) rose to over 1.3 million by the end of December 2018, as both the credit card turnover and total repayments witnessed growth from a year ago, the SAR's monetary watchdog said on Saturday.

According to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the number of personal credit cards issued by banks in Macao stood at 1,311,606 at the end of December 2018, equivalent to an increase of 2.3 percent over a quarter earlier or 10.5 percent over a year earlier.

The numbers of pataca cards, Hong Kong dollar cards and renminbi cards grew year-on-year by 9.8 percent (to 923,128), 6.2 percent (to 93,950) and 14.3 percent (to 294,528) respectively.

By the end of December 2018, credit card credit limit granted by banks in Macao reached 35 billion patacas (about 4.3 billion U.S. dollars), up 7.8 percent from the end of September 2018 or 22.7 percent from the end of December 2017.

Credit card receivables amounted to 2.8 billion patacas (about 347 million U.S. dollars), of which the rollover amount totaled 795.9 million patacas (about 98.7 million U.S. dollars), representing 28.2 percent of credit card receivables.

The delinquency ratio, i.e. the ratio of the delinquent amount overdue for more than three months to credit card receivables, dropped 0.17 percentage points to 1.32 percent when compared with the previous reporting period.

For the fourth quarter of 2018, the credit card turnover totaled 6.1 billion patacas (about 756 million U.S. dollars), a rise of 8.6 percent quarter-to-quarter or 8.5 percent year-on-year. Credit card repayments, including interest and fees, rose 2.6 percent quarter-to-quarter or 10.3 percent year-on-year to 5.8 billion patacas (about 719 million U.S. dollars).