Private sector lender RBL Bank is betting big on its credit card business and is looking to end FY20 with a customer base of 27 lakh against 17 lakh in 2018-19. It aims to add 1 lakh new credit card customers every month.
“We will roughly add about 10 lakh cards this year. For next year, we are looking at about 10 lakh to 12 lakh new acquisitions,” said Harjeet Toor, Head, Retail, Inclusion and Rural Business, RBL Bank.
RBL Bank has, till now, partnered with MasterCard, but with a growing customer base, it is also looking to partner with Visa.
“I think we have now reached a scale where we can get another player. In the next six to eight months you will see Visa coming on our platform. We have been talking for a long time,” Toor told
RBL Bank had acquired the credit cards business of Royal Bank of Scotland in 2014 with a customer base of about 40,000. Since then, it has worked with brands such as Bajaj Finserve, BookMyShow and PaisaBazaar, and had about 22.9 lakh credit cards by September 30, 2019.
The tie-up with Bajaj Finserve has brought in about 12 to 13 lakh customers for credit cards. According to Toor, the bank is now among the top four in terms of customer acquisitions for credit cards and at the sixth rank from a size perspective. Other lenders such as State Bank of India and HDFC Bank still have the lion’s share of the market.
The average retail spend per card by RBL Bank customers is about ₹10,522, and the credit card business contributed as much as 49 per cent of the bank’s fee income by September 30.
New initiative
Toor said the bank is now working on a new service. After KYC, the bank will be able to give a digital image of the credit card on the customer’s phone. “So, the online spends can start immediately,” he said, adding that the physical card will be couriered to the customer.
The bank is also likely to announce more partnerships for co-branded cards soon.