Credit card spending online has surpassed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark (Rs 1.04,081 Cr) for the first time in March 2024, with the total credit card spends during the month, including through point-of-sale machines, standing at Rs 1,64,586 crore.
According to the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the online credit card spends of Rs 1.04 lakh crore+ are 20 per cent higher than Rs 86,390 crore recorded in March 2023. From month-to-month, this marks an increase of 10 per cent from Rs 94,774 crore in February 2024.
Offline credit card transactions (through point-of-sale machines), in the month of March 2024, stood at Rs 60,378 crore, up 19 per cent from Rs 50,920 crore during the same period a year ago.
Comparing the entire financial year period, the credit card spending of Rs 18.26 lakh crore in FY 2023-24 was up 27 per cent from nearly Rs 14 lakh crore in FY 2022-23.
The number of credit cards in the country, which crossed 10 crore for the first time in the month of February 2024, increased further to 10.2 crore in March, up 20 per cent from 8.5 crore a year ago.
With five credit card issuers holding 75 per cent of market share in the country at the end of FY 2023-24, the largest share is with HDFC Bank (20.2 per cent), followed by SBI (18.5 per cent), ICICI Bank (16.6 per cent), Axis Bank (14.0 per cent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (5.8 per cent).
The top 10 card-issuing banks account for 90 per cent of the total credit cards issued in India.
The data reveals that the increased penetration of credit cards has resulted in a surge in the number of transactions. While the point-of-sale transactions rose 28 per cent year-on-year to 18 crore in March 2024, the online payments rose 33 per cent to 16.4 crore.
However, data also indicates that customers are increasingly using cards for low-value payments. With card transactions made possible on UPI network, average value of transactions is expected to fall further.
The gains in credit cards transactions have come at the expense of debit cards, the volume of transactions of which have declined by 30 per cent in stores to 11.6 crore in March 2024 and 41 per cent in online transactions to 4.3 crore.
