SBI’s Debit Card Loyalty program is a Big Hit after 9 months into vogue. This is the first time in India that a PSU Bank has taken a lead in introducing a product for the masses well ahead of its private bank competitors.
The Debit Card loyalty program began as SBI’s Credit Card venture with GE Money suffered massive losses. The bank addressed the hurdles that were in the way of Debit Card not being used by a deeper tie-up with VISA and MasterCard [in India not all cards come with VISA / MasterCard, banks provide plain vanilla ATM cards] and bingo! the outcome is amazing.
After the introduction of the program SBI’s debit card customer base shot up from 51 million to a whopping 68 million. The average number of swipes at PoS terminals went up from 1.2 mn to 2.2 mn every month.
Punjab National Bank which launched its Credit Card a year ago is now planning to copy the SBI model for debit cards. Wait a minute, its not just PNB, but even the big-wigs like Citibank, Deutshce are all set to replicate SBI’s debit card loyalty points program.