HDFC Bank set to double card business

Lender plans to tap small towns and semi-urban areas to push volumes in credit spends

MUMBAI: HDFC Bank, the largest player in Indian credit card market, aims to grow its credit card business at double the industry growth rate, which itself has grown in the range of 25-29% per annum in the past five years. India’s second largest private bank, which has around 6.5 million customers and has credit card outstanding of R1,0571 crore at the end of June 2013, will look at smaller towns and semi-urban areas to pursue higher growth.
“We expect to grow our credit card business at double the credit card industry growth rate in the current financial year,” said Parag Rao, business head, card payment products, HDFC Bank.
HDFC Bank has around 35% market share in terms of spending through credit cards. Citibank and American Express are the second and third largest player in the credit card industry.

Spending through credit cards, which has continued to increase in India in the past five years, rose 29% to R124,393 crore in 2012-13 from R96,613 crore in the previous financial year.
“Along with major cities, smaller cities in tier-II and tierIII centres are contributing growth in credit card business. Now, HDFC Bank is expanding its footprint in semi-urban and rural areas by opening more branches there and we are seeing growth there as well,” said Rao
The bank opened 518 branches in the last fiscal year and around 90% of the new branches were set up in semi urban and rural areas. The bank’s customer base currently stands at around 29 million.