Credit card spending in India saw a 2.67 per cent rise, reaching a new high of Rs 1.48 trillion in August 2023. This was up from Rs 1.45 trillion in July 2023, according to the recent RBI data.
The surge was supported by a healthy increase in both Point of Sale (PoS) and e-commerce payments. Transactions at PoS increased by nearly 6.7 per cent, totaling Rs 52,961 crore, while e-commerce payments surged to Rs 95,641 crore.
Among the banks, the transactions of major credit card issuer HDFC Bank dipped slightly by 0.1 per cent to Rs 39,371 crore from Rs 39,403 crore in the previous month. ICICI Bank saw a nearly 3 per cent increase in transactions, reaching Rs 26,606 crore, while Axis Bank showed a 0.5 per cent uptick, reaching Rs 17,752 crore.
The public sector major, SBI Cards, experienced almost a 6 per cent growth in transactions, amounting to Rs 27,414 crore, up from Rs 25,966 crore in the previous month.
In the domestic banking industry, there was an increase of 1.41 million credit cards in August, bringing the total to 91.28 million, up from 89.87 million in July. HDFC Bank maintained its leadership position with 18.53 million cards, slightly lower than the 18.54 million cards in the previous month. SBI Cards stood at 17.78 million, ICICI Bank at 15.30 million, and Axis Bank at 12.96 million.