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Issuers in India have started to deny credit cards to relatives of consumers who default on their own cards, according to a report in the India-based Business Standard newspaper and comments made to CardLine Global. Some banks also are refusing to issue cards to consumers with the same addresses as defaulters, and they have all but blacklisted some localities from receiving new cards, according to the report. "This is an offshoot of the recent financial crisis," a banking official in charge of his bank's card-services department tells CardLine Global. The official, who works for one of the top three card issuers in India, asked the he and his bank not be identified. "In the good days of India's financial world, everything was about market share, and so card issuers focused on the numbers," he says. "Unfortunately for them, some of these numbers were not creditworthy." According to the official, many "direct selling agents" wrangled their way around safeguards to issue credit cards in bulk to unworthy customers. "That's why you see some banks blacklisting entire areas," he says. "Because of these past irregularities, people with good profiles but bad locations or defaulting relatives are being refused cards." CardLine Global contacted several other domestic and foreign card-issuing banks in India, but none offered immediate comment.
