Indian consumers in December initiated 20.5 million credit card transactions, down 9.3% from 22.6 million during the same month the previous year, according to the Reserve Bank of India. Credit card sales volume, however, increased by 3.6%, to 55 billion (US$1.2 billion or 859.9 million euros) rupees from 53.1 billion rupees.
Indian financial institutions issued 20.6 million credit cards as of Dec. 31, down 20.8% from 26 million a year earlier, the central bank says.
Debit card use in December increased 30.5%, to 15.4 million transactions from 11.8 million, the central bank says. The value of those transactions increased 45.5%, to 24.3 billion rupees from 16.7 billion rupees. Indian financial institutions issued 171 million debit cards as of the end of last year, up 34.6% from 127 million a year earlier.
Though credit card sales volume grew in December, it likely does not represent an emerging trend, Mrinalini Manral, an analyst with Mumbai-based electronic payments research firm Dassler Business Intelligence, tells PaymentsSource. “The trend in the medium term would be more debit and less credit as far as Indian customers go,” she says.
