India’s IndusInd Ltd. on Apr 12 confirmed it would take over the credit card business of Deutsche Bank India Pvt. Ltd. in a deal valued at 2.24 billion rupees (US$50.3 million or 34.8 million euros). The companies expect to close the deal by the end of April.
PaymentsSource on March 22 first broke the news that Deutsche Bank chose Mumbai-based IndusInd as the preferred bidder for its Indian credit card business (
In the official announcement of the deal, Romesh Sobti, IndusInd managing director and chief executive, said existing cardholders would retain their Deutsche Bank credit card for period of time until they receive reissued cards carrying the IndusInd brand.
Sobti said he expects what was a money-losing card business to be profitable within a year, though he did not disclose how the bank would accomplish that goal.
Deutsche Bank has 217 employees in its Indian credit card division. Once the acquisition is complete, the operating platform of the card franchise, including technology and staff, will move to IndusInd, according to the announcement.
As reported earlier, Mumbai-based Axis Bank Ltd. was closest to IndusInd in the bidding to buy Deutsche Bank’s Indian card operations. But IndusInd’s offer of absorbing the unit’s staff resulted in Axis dropping out of the race.
Axis was not the only other bank interested in the card operations. In December, PaymentsSource reported that Deutsche Bank had received bids from 11 banks, including ICICI Bank Ltd., Karnataka Bank Ltd., Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd., Yes Bank Ltd., and Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd. (
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