Barclays Bank India Pvt. Ltd. has been unable to find a buyer for its credit card business, despite offering a heavy discount to potential buyers, an official with one of the banks Barclays approached tells PaymentsSource.
Reports emerged in April that the bank was planning to review a potential sale of its credit card business in India after deciding to focus instead on secured retail assets (
None of the market’s potential buyers, including some that had tried to buy the card portfolio of Deutsche Bank India Pvt. Ltd. earlier this year, have made an offer, according to the official, who declined to be named. Those banks include Axis Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd., Karnataka Bank Ltd., Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd., Yes Bank Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd. and IndusInd Bank Ltd., which ultimately won the bidding for Deutsche Bank’s card portfolio (
The institutions appear to be playing a waiting game because Barclays has significant bad card loans on its books, and it eventually could be forced to reduce the portfolio price even further, the official says.
According to Reserve Bank of India’s public profile of banks, Barclays saw its net nonperforming loans rise to 5.15% of receivables at the end of March compared with 4.59% a year earlier. Further, the bank also has reduced its Indian card unit’s staff by 29%, to 1,083 at the end of 2011 against 1,534 in the previous year.
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
