At the end of 2009, there were 2.7 credit cards for every person in the United States. In total, that's 576.4 million credit cards in circulation. To put it in context, as of 2008, there was one credit card per 65 people in India, which had more than three times the population of the US at the time.
More facts about credit cards:
- In 2009, Visa alone had over $9 billion US Dollars (USD) in transactions — which was a decrease of two percent from the year before.
- Almost one-fifth of graduating seniors carried more than $7,000 USD in credit card debt at the end of 2009.
- Penalty fees from credit cards in the US added up to about $20.5 billion USD in 2009.