KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians have an outstanding balance of RM36.9 billion on their credit cards.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong told the Dewan Negara that out of this outstanding monies owed, 7.3 per cent was due to overdue balance owed by creditors.
He also said that a total of 845 people, aged 30 and above, were also declared bankrupt due to unpaid credit card bills in the first half of 2017.
"The remaining breakdown over the payment date are as follows; firstly, outstanding balance that not exceeding three months is 6.2 per cent worth RM2.3 billion.
"Secondly, outstanding balance of more than three months or the non-performing loans is at 1.1 per cent which is worth RM0.4 billion," he said.
Lee said on an average, 43.6 per cent of total cardholders settled their credit card debt completely in the January to June 2017 period, while another 43.6 per cent pay up at least five per cent of the outstanding balance in the same period.
He adds that the remaining 12.8 per cent are cardholders who do not pay even the minimum payment of their outstanding balance before or within the due date.
He stated that there are 3.6 million credit cardholders up to June this year.
Based on statistics released by the Statiscs Department in 2016, he said the figure represents per cent of the 20 million population aged between 20 to 74 years old.
Lee was replying to Senator Datuk Jaspal Singh who asked for the percentage of people with credit cards, amount of unpaid credit card debt and the number declared bankrupt due to credit card debts.