Charging annual fees before card activation: The "mysterious operation" of CITIC Bank credit cards

Credit card fees are charged even before the card is activated, and the “mysterious operations” of Citic Bank credit cards have led cardholders to question the compliance of its business.

One cardholder said to “Laser Finance” that they have recently, one after another, received text messages from Citic Bank credit cards informing them that a bill of 480 yuan has not been paid.

The repayment text message also states: “By the repayment date, March 8, you have already paid at least the minimum repayment amount; the remaining amount can be deferred without affecting your credit report. All overdraft amounts accrue interest daily, with a daily interest rate of 0.05%, which translates to an annualized interest rate of 18.25%.”

Although it looks like a normal repayment reminder, it makes this Citic Bank credit cardholder suspicious. The cardholder said that earlier, at an offline seminar, the staff who handled the application promoted the card and helped them apply for a Citic Bank credit card, but from beginning to end it was never activated and there was no use of it.

After further checking their personal credit report, they found that the credit report states the card was issued by the Citic Bank credit card center on December 26, 2024, but as of February 2026 it has not been activated.

If the credit report shows that the credit card was not activated, where did the charged fees come from? Would the credit card overdue payment shown in the text message really affect the individual’s credit report? With these questions, the cardholder sought confirmation from the customer service staff at the Citic Bank credit card center.

“Customer service said that the electronic card for this credit card was activated through other channels. The bill does exist, and not paying it on time will indeed affect your credit report, but you can waive the annual fee by swiping the card; if you swipe enough times related to the requirement within a year, the fee can be reduced.” The cardholder said.

Faced with the customer service explanation, the cardholder was not convinced. They believe this may involve a marketing scheme intended to push cardholders to activate the credit card and use it by swiping. “Because the credit report has clearly stated that the card was not activated. Since the account was not activated, how could the bill and overdue information end up on the credit report?”

Article 49 of the “Supervision and Administration Measures for Commercial Bank Credit Card Business” also clearly stipulates that if a credit card is not activated by the cardholder, no fees may be charged.

The logic behind Citic Bank credit card’s “mysterious operations” is unknown. But behind the compliance controversy, Citic Bank credit cards are experiencing the pain of a transformation as transaction volumes shrink, revenue declines, and the bad-loan ratio rises.

According to financial report data, in 2025 Citic Bank credit cards issued a cumulative 129 million cards, up 4.60% from the end of the previous year; the credit card loan balance was 462.117 billion yuan, down 5.28% year over year. During the reporting period, transaction volume for Citic Bank credit cards was 2.18 trillion yuan, down 10.66% year over year; credit card business revenue was 47.749 billion yuan, down 14.60% year over year.

As one of the leading issuers, Citic Bank credit cards in recent years have seen relatively significant deceleration in scale and deceleration in performance. By the end of 2025, the poor momentum in Citic Bank credit card performance had not ended, and the bad-loan ratio also hit a new high in recent years.

In fact, driven by adjustments in the overall credit card market cycle and the impact of competition in existing stock, fluctuations in growth for Citic Bank credit cards have continued for several years. Based on historical performance data, the turning point for Citic Bank credit cards was around 2018.

In 2018, Citic Bank credit cards continued to maintain high growth. That year it issued 67.0569 million cards in total, up 35.27% from the end of the prior year; credit card transaction volume reached 2,081.583 billion yuan, up 39.48% year over year. The credit card loan balance was 442.046 billion yuan, up 32.63% year over year.

Starting in 2019, the growth rate of Citic Bank credit cards’ performance and the growth rate of its scale began to decline. Over seven years, the number of newly issued cards per year fell from the tens of millions to the millions. Transaction volume, loan balance, and revenue shifted from double-digit growth to negative growth.

Among them, transaction volume supports non-interest income of the credit card business, while loan balance is a core source of interest income for the credit card business. In terms of loan-scale indicators, from 2017 to 2024, Citic Bank credit cards recorded 333.297 billion yuan, 442.046 billion yuan, 514.250 billion yuan, 485.232 billion yuan, 527.742 billion yuan, 510.467 billion yuan, 520.691 billion yuan, and 487.882 billion yuan, respectively.

With less transaction volume, there is less overdraft balance, and credit card business revenue naturally also fluctuates accordingly. In addition, as the loan balance scale—the denominator—shrinks, even slight fluctuations in the size of non-performing loans can amplify overall pressure on asset quality.

As of the end of 2025, Citic Bank credit cards had non-performing loans of 12.118 billion yuan, down 0.119 billion yuan from the end of the previous year; the non-performing loan ratio was 2.62%, up 0.12 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Looking back at non-performing loan ratio data over the past five years, the non-performing loan ratio of Citic Bank credit cards has already reached a new phased high.

To ease the pain of slower growth, Citic Bank credit cards also accelerated business transformation, deepening and expanding customer acquisition channels, focusing on improving the structure of its customer base, optimizing the allocation of credit granting resources, centering on the enhancement of self-collection capabilities, and vigorously promoting installment business and value-added business—seeking to stabilize scale and protect earnings.

However, during the transformation and operations, Citic Bank credit cards have also faced a large number of consumer complaints and instances where they were penalized for imprudent operations.

In 2025, Citic Bank credit cards received a total of 259,290 complaints, including complaints transferred from regulatory channels, 95558 channel complaints, complaints from the credit card center channel, and complaints from other channels. Among Citic Bank’s ongoing legal cases, complaints related to credit card business were the largest, accounting for as much as 53.92%.

The emergence of compliance flaws seems to also confirm the difficulty of Citic Bank credit cards’ transformation; the challenge of balancing revenue generation with compliance is hard to achieve.

Source: Laser Finance

Statement: This article is for knowledge sharing only, and is intended to convey more information! This article does not constitute any investment advice. Any investment decisions made based on it are at your own risk.