A girl walks past a booth selling credit cards on campus in this undated photo. [Photo: CNR.cn]

The "financial chief" considered the incident as "low cost and zero risk" and said they intended to eliminate the complicated procedure for the students and the bank would therefore be more efficient.

Qiang Jianzhou, another official from Xidian, even said it is unnecessary to keep the student information a secret from banks, since "banks will protect the customers' information."

At the end of the interview, Qiang said they will publish an online notice on tianya.cn, a popular online forum in China, and "occupy" other media channels to stop the news from spreading. He also warned the journalist not to do any further interview.

What's more ridiculous is, Qiang even threatened to detain the journalists when the interview finished. "I will make it a nationwide breaking news," Qiang yelled.

To date, although these cards have been written off, the bank insisted that they have not violated the regulation on credit card registration.

Two bank insiders' words may make it clear why the secret deal could be managed.

One insider told that every registration could be accounted into the bank staff's workload, and they could get an extra of ten yuan or even thirty yuan for each card if the registration number exceeds a scheduled amount.

Another one said banks targeted these students as their potential customers, because people will probably keep using the cards even after their graduation due to the loyalty to the first card.

(CRI December 19, 2008)