CardBhai – India Credit Cards Reviews and Advise

The Kolkata Police have busted a Credit Card racket involving unused credit cards. The modus operandi set by the thieves was to call credit card holders and tell them since their card is not in-use they’d be levied charges between Rs2000 to Rs 4000. Hearing this, the consumer would retaliate and the thieves would let such consumers go and for the others they’d offer that the bank will cancel your card and an agent will be sent to your home to pick up the same. Bingo! once the consumer approved of cancellation, one of the racketeers would visit as a Sales Agent with perfect dressing and make them sign-over some documents to make it appear as legal and then collect the card.

Once the card was in their hands, Read the rest of this entry »

Sensing an Opportunity in Getting the UnBanked in India to use Banking Services, SBI introduced the Smart Payout Card in the Pre-Paid segment especially targeting Blue Colored Workers who have no Bank accounts.

Features of the SBI Smart Payout Card

• Employers can give to any of their employees or contract workers, labors or managers managing small tasks
• A Maximum Withdrawal Limit of Rs 25,000 per month
• The Card can be re-filled with a maximum amount of Rs 10,000
• Card can be used to Withdraw cash in ATM

Read the rest of this entry »

Leading Credit bureaus in India – CIBIL, Experian and Equifax have started lobbying with the government for to get access to consumers Mobile Bill Payment records. The companies have initiated talks with TRAI which currently prohibits sharing of consumer data with any of the credit bureaus in India.

Telecom Operators are Un-willing to share the information with the Bureaus unless the Government mandates. Separately, CIBIL the company which tracks your creditworthiness is also in talks with various Utility Companies (Electricity Suppliers where Consumers Pay Monthly Bills) as these records will Read the rest of this entry »

In our previous article we presented that Credit Cards is the Next Big Product for Banks contributing to Banks Bottom-line in the Wealth Management Segment. Today we’d like to analyze on the basis of Data which Banks are Leading the Credit Cards Business Segment in India.

HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank seem set to lead this business. The share from this business is likely to be most significant to HDFC Bank (over 15% of fee income) given its high market share in credit card transactions or volumes. For most other banks, the share of this business is relatively lower at less than 10% of Read the rest of this entry »

We see an opportunity for Indian banks from the shift towards newer and inexpensive payment platforms and better penetration of non- balance sheet products like Credit Cards. Banks that make money through ATM interchange fees are likely to see higher income through debit / credit card transactions. On the other hand, a strong retail customer base, new products and focus can provide healthy wealth-management business.

Penetration levels have improved for debit cards (~40% of savings account customers) and a proper incentive structure should enable strong growth in fee income for all banks. We notice most of the fee income generated in the cards portfolio coming Read the rest of this entry »

The Indian Regulator has managed to buck the trend and witness fall in complaints from consumers on ATM / Credit / Debit Cards. Card related complaints declined from 17,116 to 14,492 in FY 2011-12, a fall of 15%.

SBI and Associate Banks witnessed the same level of complaints. It is the Private Banks and Foreign Banks which saw lower level of complaints both registering a fall of 28% and 44% respectively. Total of 9350 Complaints Read the rest of this entry »