Due to the receding effect of the payment of salary taxes by credit card, total card receivables fell 6.3% or $4.5 billion in the first quarter after rising by 11.8% in the previous quarter.

The Monetary Authority said the transfer of $126 million of rescheduled receivables, representing 0.2% of average receivables outside the credit card portfolio during the quarter also contributed to the decline in total receivables.

The total number of credit card accounts rose by 1.1%.

The rollover amount, which reflects the amount of borrowing by customers using their credit cards, rose to $25.1 billion from $25 billion last December.

The charge-off amount rose further in the first quarter to $550 million or 0.79% of average receivables from $540 million in the previous quarter. The annualised charge-off ratio rose to 3.17% from 3.13% in the previous quarter.

The delinquent amount fell to $262 million at the end of March compared with $269 million at the end of the previous quarter. However, the delinquency ratio rose to 0.39% from 0.37% at the end of December due to a faster contraction in total card receivables.