Icelanders are world record holders in credit card usage but not in credit card debt, reports Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Delinquencies are now one tenth of what they were in 2002. Turnover, on the other hand, has increased by 20% this year; there was a 30% increase in debit card usage the first 11 months of the year.
RÚV reports that credit cards are used in all trade even when people are investing. The director of credit card company Kreditkort hf., Ragnar Önundarson, says that cash is only used in a fraction of all trade. He believes that cash mostly used on the black market when people do not want the tax office to be able to trace their transactions.
