The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) Wednesday issued new regulations governing commercial banks' credit card business.

The new rules forbid banks to issue cards to minors, people without a regular source of income, and people without the capacity for civil conduct.

But minors may qualify for a credit card provided an adult guarantees his or her repayments. Banks must obtain the consent of guarantors before recovering charges incurred by minors.

The new regulations require banks to keep client information secret and bar them from charging fees on non-activated cards.

The CBRC also ruled that banks' credit card businesses must be incorporated into their internal risk control and management systems. It also ruled that numbers of credit cards issued should not be the sole criterion for judging the performance of banking staff.

Commercial banks in China have issued a total of 185 million credit cards to date. Total credit card transactions amounted to 2.2 trillion yuan in the first half of 2010, an increase of 730 billion yuan over the same period last year.

China's business press carried the story above on Thursday. China.org.cn has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.