By the end of Mar 2016, India had 24.5 million credit cards and 661 million debit cards in operation (not issued).

The total number of transactions on credit cards grew by 27% while it rose by 48% for debit cards for the year ending March 2016. In March, total number of transactions through credit cards were 72.22 million while the figure for debit cards was 112.87 million.

The average amount transacted on credit card is 2.5x higher than that of debit card.

Which banks have the largest credit card base?

HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank lead in the total credit card base.

 

Which cities have the highest penetration?

While I don’t have the exact city-wise penetration data, CIBIL research shows that maximum number of credit card applicants came from Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. An indicative numbers on city-wise credit card penetration is as below.

• Coimbatore – 12.5%
• Jaipur – 12%
• Chennai – 11.7%
• Delhi – 11.6%
• Nagpur – 11%
• Mumbai – 9%
• Bangalore – 9%
• Surat – 8%
• Ahmedabad – 7.7%
• Pune – 7.6%
• Faridabad, Kolkata, Chandigrah – 7.5%
• Kanpur – 7%
• Amritsar – 5.4%
• Ludhiana – 5%

On usage, CIBIL data shows that Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune and Mumbai have a higher usage of credit cards than Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. Even Bajaj Finance EMI card too witnessed a steep rise in its number of EMI cards to a total of 9.8 million cards in India.

Credit card & EMI card penetration has largely been low in India for ages. Certain retail categories such as large appliances and other high value purchases are bought a lot on credit and hence it is imperative for ecommerce and offline retailers to look for other opportunities of offering credit to customers for growth in these categories.

Thank you.

Source:

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/sharp-rise-in-bajaj-finance-s-emi-card-user-base-in-past-12-months-117092300497_1.html)