Improved consumer and issuer confidence in India is helping revive the nation’s credit card market. Debit card use, however, continues to grow at a much faster pace, new data from India’s central bank show.
Indian consumers in May spent 59.4 billion rupees using their credit cards, up 23.2% from 48.2 billion rupees a year earlier. They initiated 21 million transactions, up 15.4% from 18.2 million, according to the Reserve Bank of India. The number of credit cards in circulation fell 20.8%, to 19 million from 24 million, the central bank says.
Consumers have regained their faith in the economy and are more confident about retaining their jobs, and this helped to drive their increased use of credit cards, an official from the central bank tells PaymentsSource. “Plus the banks have started issuing cards again, which may not be reflected in month-on-month numbers yet,” he adds. “But that is reflecting in usage.”
Meanwhile, debit card use in May increased 41.7%, to 18 million transactions from 12.7 million a year earlier, the central bank says. Debit card sales volume increased 56.6%, to 29.6 billion rupees from 18.9 billion rupees.
Indian financial institutions issued 188.3 million debit cards as of the end of May, up 31.7%from 143 million issued a year earlier.
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