Economics, Business and Management: Recent Advances Vol. 4

During the 14^th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China's credit card industry entered a period of substantial adjustment under tighter regulation, rising asset-quality pressure, changing consumer payment behaviour, and weaker retail profitability. This study examines publicly disclosed annual reports and official disclosures of selected joint-stock commercial banks together with regulatory, statistical, industry, and peer-reviewed academic sources. A structured documentary comparison is applied across three outcome dimensions-card issuance scale, usage behaviour, and operating performance-and five transformation dimensions: customer acquisition quality, scenario-based operations, technology enablement, value-chain extension, and cost optimisation. National data show that the number of credit cards and combined credit/debit cards declined from 807 million in the third quarter of 2022 to 687 million in the first quarter of 2026. Bank-level disclosures also indicate substantial heterogeneity in transaction activity, asset quality, and retail profitability. Across the documentary evidence, recurring transformation approaches include more selective customer acquisition, ecosystem-based operations, technology-enabled risk management and service, integration with broader retail banking, and cost optimisation. Because disclosure practices and indicator definitions differ across banks, the findings are descriptive rather than causal. The paper concludes with implications for business positioning, customer management, organisational coordination, and technology-enabled risk control during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.