A recent press report said that bankers are expecting a 25-30 per cent rise in spends on debit and credit cards in the forthcoming festive season.
According to reports from the Reserve Bank of India Web site, there are close to 25.5 crore debit and credit cards in circulation as on March 31, 2011. And the spends amount to Rs 1, 14,205 crore.
Reports said that 60 per cent of the customers expenses are paid using cards and with consumers owning multiple cards (whether debit or credit) the banks are driven to introduce lucrative schemes to push up spends on their cards.
Reports also said that banks always want to encourage card over cash so they introduce cash discount to customers swiping their card at merchant outlets.
Speaking on the issue, Ms. Sonalee Panda, Marketing Head, ING Vysya Bank told the press that the bank expects 45 per cent rise in spends on cards this festive season over last year, and that the increase in spends will be across various categories such as apparel, consumer durables, travel and gold.
Mr. Salil Datar, Head-Branch Banking and NRI Business, Dhanlaxmi Bank said that the bank was running a ‘Swipe n Fly’ campaign on its debit cards, under which customers are offered prizes.
The banks are facing a slow down in their loan business as the continuous hike in rates have made all retails loans dearer to the borrowers. Retails loans include home loans, personal loan, car loans, gold loan, mortgage loan etc.