Credit card spending in India increased for the 11th consecutive month in January, surpassing ₹1 lakh crore. The spending reached ₹1.28 lakh crore, which is a nearly 1% increase compared to December's already high base when card spending stood at ₹1.26 lakh crore, Business Line reported quoting RBI data.
The rise in spending was driven by a surge in e-commerce and online transactions. Year-on-year, credit card spending in India was higher by approximately 45%, the report said.
In October last year, credit card spends touched a peak of ₹1.29 lakh crore amid a rise in festival-driven transactions.
In January, e-commerce sales made up more than 61% of the total card spending, indicating a significant shift towards online shopping. This was followed by point-of-sale transactions at 38% and other transactions making up rest, as per the report.
Most major credit card issuers, such as ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and SBI Card, saw a single digit increase in spends; however, HDFC Bank saw a 1.3 percent decline despite an increase in outstanding cards.
Even then, the private sector lender continued to maintain its leadership position in terms of spending, with a market share of 28 percent, followed by SBI Card, which had a market share of 19 percent, the report noted.
In January, the net card additions were 12.6 lakh, or 1.6%, which is higher than December's 5.8 lakh. As a result, the total number of outstanding credit cards reached 8.2 crore by the end of the month.
The addition in the number of cards was led by SBI Card, which saw a net increase of 3.3 lakh, followed by HDFC Bank, seeing a rise of 2.2 lakh, Axis Bank, of 1.4 lakh and ICICI Bank, of 1.3 lakh on month.
Meanwhile, the credit growth of banks eased to 16.8% in the December quarter from 17.2% in the preceding quarter. In the year-ago quarter, bank credit grew by 8.4%.
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