By the end of September, the state-owned commercial banks and post offices had almost completed the network linking over 300 cities, she said. The joint-stock commercial banks had finished linking all branches to their own systems.

Meanwhile, the volume of trans-bank trade using bankcards has increased dramatically. In the first nine months of this year, transactions were worth a total of 119.2 billion yuan (US$15 billion), up 95.2 percent compared with the same period last year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2002)