China's credit card debt at least six months overdue rose 14.4 percent in the first quarter from the fourth quarter in 2009 to 8.8 billion yuan (1.29 billion U.S. dollars), the central bank said on Wednesday.

Debt overdue by six months or more accounted for 3.5 percent of the total outstanding credit card debt at the end of the first quarter, up 0.4 percentage points from the end of the fourth quarter, said a statement issued by the People's Bank of China on its website.

The bank warned of potential risks of the increasing overdue credit card debt, as the country's lenders continued to expand their credit card business.

By the end of March, China's banks had issued 2.17 billion bank cards, up 14.9 percent from a year earlier, but the growth rate was 4.1 percentage points lower year on year, said the statement.

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