Credit Cards by Country

Chart of the day is a nice one from Foreign Policy comparing the number of credit cards per person, per country around the world:

Comments

[beni]

This chart is incredibly misleading since the vast majority of people in China and India are subsistance farmers. To get a good sense of credit card opportunity, you need to count "bankable" people only. A good proxy may be numbers on the emerging middle class in these markets that we keep hearing about

[who]

It is not so much card per person, but the total credit limit and actual spending on daily needs and comfort items.

More and more people from India and China are approaching middle class hence more credit cards. Also, in these countries owning a credit card is status symbol.

Hence, it can only be up, up, and up....

[rdial54]

Protect our investments. This market is dangerous. Recession since December. In my humble opinion.

[User 169775]

To the guy who posted the first comment:

Vast majority of people in China and India are subsistance farmers?

Sorry dude, you must be living in the 1980s. Ever wonder why almost everything you see on Walmart's shelves is labeled "Made in China"?

The chief economic engine driving China today is manufacturing, not subsistence farming, which is why the latest UN population report says 40% of China's population live in urban areas.

Visa stands to get a huge market share boost during the Beijing Olympics this year-- They are the exclusive payment system for the Olympics (sorry, they don't take Mastercard or American Express), and Visa's commercials and branding will be flooding Chinese TVs this summer.

Maybe that's why Visa chose to go public during these troubled times.

[Jose Martin]

To the first comment, he's certainly ignorant sitting at his screen - thinking the vast majority are subsistence farmers. Get an education dude. The rising middle class is what is driving the growth their - google "Indian demographics"