Spending also remained above Rs 2 lakh crore for the second straight month. Total credit card spending at Rs 2.01 lakh crore saw a modest 0.5% dip from May’s Rs 2.02 lakh crore but rose 9.8% from Rs 1.83 lakh crore a year earlier.
The additions were led, once again, by the country’s largest issuers. HDFC Bank topped the list, adding 163,000 net new credit cards and edging past SBI Cards, which added 162,000. ICICI Bank added 151,000 cards, while Federal Bank continued its strong momentum with 101,000 net new additions.
“We are in the process of acquiring the Standard Chartered India credit card portfolio, and we remain confident of completing the integration before the end of this calendar year,” said Federal Bank managing director and chief executive KVS Manian. “Cards, and especially our organic, non-co-branded cards, are a segment we have been building deliberately, and this accelerates that.”
IDFC First Bank added 91,000 cards, while the momentum cooled at Axis Bank, where the number rose by 48,636. Kotak Mahindra Bank added 31,386. RBL Bank turned a corner, flipping from a net loss of 6,116 cards in May to a gain of 29,270 in June, a sign that whatever portfolio clean-up was weighing on its numbers may now be behind it.
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Spending patterns, broken down by issuer, show a market still overwhelmingly concentrated among four names. HDFC Bank alone accounted for roughly Rs 59,432 crore of June’s spends, close to 29.5% of the industry total, followed by SBI Cards at around Rs 41,077 crore with an about 20.4% share.