SBI Card says note-ban pushes up spends by 30%

The second largest credit card player SBI Card on Monday said post-noteban, the total spends on its cards have increased by 25-30%, despite fall in certain segments like fuel, jewellery and other discretionary spending.

"Total spending on our cards increased post-demonetisation by 25-30%. But in some categories like fuel, jewellery and discretionary spending came down," SBI Card chief executive Vijay Jasuja told reporters on Monday.

State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya chipped in saying pre-demonetisation SBI Cards were getting 65% of transactions on cards and after demonetisation it has been 85%. So, in a span of 50 days we have seen a rise of 50%.

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In November, spends had actually declined but the number of transactions went up. But then, subsequently in December it picked up again as there was 35-50% increase in number of transactions during the month, he added.

With a little over 15% market share, SBI Card is the second largest player in the 27.3 million credit cards market.         

Jasuja said he has 4.75 million credit card users. He said in December alone, SBI Card issued 1,05,000 new cards.

Normally, 35-40% is the attrition. So, net-addition was 65,000 in December.

In the past few months, the company was adding upwards of 1,00,000 cards per month. One year back it was around 65,000 and two years ago it was 40-45,000 a month. In the past two months consistently they have crossed 1,00,000, he added.

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