In December last year, the banking regulator, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prohibited the country’s largest private lender, HDFC Bank from issuing fresh credit cards and any new digital launches, due to multiple glitches reported on the bank’s mobile banking service, in the past two years.
According to the data released by RBI on Friday, ICICI Bank has added the highest number of new credit card users in the fourth quarter of FY21 ending March, followed by SBI Card and Axis Bank.
At the same time, the credit card customer base of HDFC Bank has tumbled by double the strength of new customers added to ICICI Bank’s credit card base.
ICICI Bank’s Credit Card Base Leads Segment by 52%
India’s largest private bank, HDFC has lost about 3.23 lakh credit card users in the last quarter of FY21, pulling down it’s credit cards customer base to credit card users in the quarter ending March 2021.
This comes after RBI’s decision to penalize the lender for lapses in its digital services; which could be a reason among others, for HDFC Bank’s shrink in credit card users’ base, while the major reason still remains unconfirmed.
Consequent to HDFC’s current fate, ICICI Bank has added a record number of 672,911 new credit card users between the Dec 2020 and Mar 2021 period.
In March, it continued to lead in fresh issuances, accounting for nearly 52% of new cards, showed data released by the RBI. The total number of new credit cards issued in March alone, was 4.02 lakh.
IDFC Bank Ranked 4th in the List
Following ICICI Bank’s highest number of new credit card user additions in Q4 FY21, is SBI Card and Axis Bank.
At the fourth position, stands a new entrant in the credit card sector, IDFC First Bank, which has successfully added more than 1.5 lakh new customers in the said period.
The bank added a total of 175,753 cards in three months.