HDFC Bank aims to regain lost mkt

MUMBAI: HDFC Bank aims to recover lost credit card market share over the next three-four quarters, a top executive at the private lender said, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted a ban on new card issuances. Since the bank was barred from issuing new credit cards in December last year, rival lender ICICI Bank has been consistently gaining share.

To be sure, HDFC Bank remains the largest credit card issuer, with 14.8 million cards outstanding at the end of June, followed by SBI Card with 12 million and ICICI Bank with 11.03 million. HDFC Bank now plans to further strengthen its position at the top. “We really took this embargo as a fantastic opportunity to sit back, introspect, look at our products and services, look at all our processes and what is happening in the marketplace,” said Parag Rao, group head (payments, consumer finance, digital banking and IT), HDFC Bank.

The bank, Rao said, had hit the milestone of sourcing 300,000 new cards every month in November last year and plans to match it in the next three months. Once that is achieved, the bank targets onboarding 500,000 credit card customers every month, over the next two quarters.

Last week, RBI partially lifted restrictions imposed last December on HDFC Bank, allowing it to resume issuing credit cards.

However, the ban on new digital launches is still in place. On 2 December, RBI had barred the bank from launching new digital banking initiatives and issuing new credit cards until it addressed lapses that sparked multiple glitches in its internet and mobile banking systems over the previous two years.

India’s largest private lender will primarily rely on its existing customer base to drive growth in the credit card space. According to Rao, the bank has been adding over 400,000 deposit customers every month for the past eight months and this would act as an immediate base to give credit cards to.