Cards-in-force crossed the milestone of 10 crore cards outstanding in February, even as spends declined by over 10 per cent in the truncated month, as per data by the Reserve Bank of India.
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The number of cards increased steadily by 1.1 per cent in February to stand at 10.06 crore cards at the end of the month. The figure was at 9.95 crore at the end of January 2024, aided by HDFC Bank crossing 2 crore cards during the month.
Credit cards rose by 11 lakh during the month, slower than 16 lakh additions in January and 19 lakh in December 2023. Banks such as SBM Bank India, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, Union Bank, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Bank of Maharashtra saw a decline in their cards during the month.
Among the top four issuers, HDFC Bank maintained its leadership position, with the highest addition of 3 lakh cards during the month, taking the total to 2.04 crore cards at the end of February. State Bank of India was a close second with 1.88 crore cards, with cards increasing by 1.5 lakh. New cards issued by Axis Bank were 1.6 lakh whereas those by ICICI Bank were much lower at below 50,000.
Indian Bank, CSB Bank, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, South Indian Bank and YES Bank were the other issuers to see strong net addition in cards in February.
Card spends decline
Despite the steady increase in cards, card spends for the month declined by 10.4 per cent to ₹1.49-lakh crore from ₹1.66-lakh crore in January 2024. Spends had touched the peak of ₹1.78-lakh crore in October 2023.
The share of e-commerce payments declined to 63.5 per cent of total card spends during the month from 64.8 per cent in January 2024, whereas PoS (point-of-sale) transactions increased to 36.5 per cent from 35.2 per cent in the previous month.
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Spends for all of the top four issuers declined during the month, falling by 8-24 per cent. SBI saw the highest fall of 24.3 per cent in spends to ₹23,248 crore. HDFC Bank, despite seeing a decline of 7.8 per cent, continued to lead with highest spends of ₹40,288 crore during the month.
PNB, Union Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank, IDFC First Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank too saw a sharp decline in their spends for the month, whereas others such as IndusInd Bank, Indian Bank and Citibank saw an increase in spends.