BEIJING, May 11 -- Last week was a real golden week for domestic lenders as spending by cardholders reached record highs at home and aboard in the recent seven-day May Day holiday.

    China UnionPay, which operates the country's national bank card payment system, revealed Monday that cross-bank transactions by bank cardholders reached 16.6 billion yuan (US$2 billion) from May 1-7, an increase of about 52 percent from last year.

    The cross-bank transactions recorded by the company included cash withdrawals from automated teller machines (ATMs) and spending in businesses like stores, hotels and restaurants.

    Cardholders tended to spend more on domestic and foreign travel, advanced home appliances, and dining out with family members, statistics from China Unionpay showed.

    Consumption by domestic bank cardholders in Hong Kong and Macao surged four times to 300 million yuan compared with the same period of last year.

    Since the company first allowed cardholders to use domestic cards ¡ª either credit cards or debit cards linked to savings accounts ¡ª in South Korea, Thailand and Singapore on Jan. 10, card transactions have been increasing gradually.

    During the holiday, more than 5.5 million yuan was spent by traveling cardholders, the firm said.

    China will have about 75 million credit cards that can be used in the international market by 2010, up from more than three million currently, according to a forecast by MasterCard, the world's second-biggest credit-card company.

(Source: China Daily)