Banks urged to be more vigilant about credit card applications

He said that his prosecuting authority has already contacted Xicheng's bank regulatory commission to discuss how to develop credit card supervision and establish a platform to share information.

"It deserves to be extended across the capital," he added.

Cui Shaoyu, a 25-year-old credit cardholder, said that she always pays great attention to her account, adding she even once called her bank to explain why she had not repaid in time.

"The interest is high if cardholders don't repay, and I hope to increase my credit limit. So I don't want the bank to remind me in either calls or messages," she added.

However, Zhu said not all cardholders like Cui contact their banks to explain problems, and added that financial institutions should create a "blacklist" of customers who are credit risks.

"Currently, the credit system in China is lagging and has no professional assessment institutions compared with those in Western countries, which isn't good for regulation of the industry," she said.

Banks lack a database they can share with information on clients' credit, so many people can apply for credit cards without all the required documentation, even after they run up a lot of debt.

All the prosecutors interviewed said many people have no awareness of credit card fraud and don't realize that it's a crime.

"Almost 80 percent of suspects or convicts didn't know they had an intentional overdraft, and a few of them even paid one bank's debts with another bank's card," Lu said, adding those who do not repay more than three months after a bank reminds twice will be identified as the intentional overdraft as per the current Chinese Criminal Law.