Chinese credit card holder delinquency rates dropped in the second quarter of the year despite an expansion in credit card issuance, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said here Tuesday.

Credit card delinquencies with late payment of over six months totaled 7.3 billion yuan (1.07 billion U.S. dollars) in the second quarter, down 17.1 percent from the first quarter, the PBOC, China's central bank, said in a statement on its website.

The credit card delinquency ratio was 2.5 percent in the second quarter, down 1 percentage point from the first quarter, according to the PBOC statement.

Credit card loans at the end of the second quarter totaled 287.76 billion yuan (42.33 billion U.S. dollars), up 53.1 percent from the same time the previous year and up 15.8 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

Credit lines to card holders in China had reached 1.64 trillion yuan (214.25 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of the second quarter, up 40 percent year on year, the PBOC said.

By the end of the second quarter, the number of credit cards issued by banks in China had risen 27.4 percent year on year to 207 million, equating to 16 credit cards for every 100 people in the country.