Costa Rica News – Costa Rica has 31 credit card issuers and 468 card types available.
The collective credit card debt of Costa Ricans is over 1 trillion colones as of this October 31.
This is a huge amount as the growth of debt is higher than the country’s economic growth.
This figure represents 3.3% of the gross domestic product. This is according to the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) in their quarterly study of credit and debit cards.
The study also revealed that 78% of the credit cards have interest rates higher than 40%.
Compared to this same period last year, the growth of the debt is 20%. Additionally, 11% more cards are reported to be in circulation. Costa Ricans have 2.3 million credit cards all together.
The Economy Minister stresses that this is not the way to finance. He was quoted as saying “He who does not pay cash, pays too much.”
