HDFC Bank aims one million new credit cards in 2012-13

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Private lender HDFC Bank on Sunday rolled out credit cards for doctors to cater to medical fraternity's specific needs, as part of its plans to launch total one million credit cards in current fiscal to deepen its presence in credit cards space.

The credit cards for doctors — Superia and Platinum have been designed to cater to the lifestyle, travel and other needs of doctors.

The doctors with new exclusive range of credit cards members will be able to access more than 600 airports lounges around the world, irrespective of preferred airlines or class and they will also benefit from the reward point redemption across all major airlines in India, said HDFC Bank, Business Head (Credit Cards & Merchant Acquiring Services) Parag Rao here on Sunday.

He informed that 8.4 lakh are registered doctors in the country as per Medical Council of India while 35,000 become new doctors every year.

"Healthcare sector in India stands at USD 17 billion and it is growing at a rate of 13 per cent," he said.

Claiming to be one of the largest players in credit cards business in the country, Rao said that HDFC bank had a credit card customer base of 5.60 million as on March 2012.

"We are adding 90,000 to 100,000 credit cards every month which is more than the double of what credit card industry is doing," he said.

HDFC bank has plans to launch 1 million new credit cards in current fiscal in line with its strategy to further penetrate the credit card business.

"We have plans to launch 1 million new credit cards in 2012-13 which is more than what we launched last fiscal," he said.

Country’s total credit card holders are pegged at 18 million, down from 28 million in 2008 when slowdown hit global economies.

Rao further said that the bank witnessed 60 per cent growth in terms spending through credit cards in last fiscal against industry’s overall spending of 10-11 per cent.

"We aim to perform better than industry’s growth in terms of spending which is likely to be 15-20 per cent in current fiscal," he said.

With travelling, eating out and apparel segments constituting bulk of total spending by credit card holders, Rao said that the online shopping was going to be the next growth driver for the credit card industry.

"The way internet space is growing, we feel online shopping through credit card which constitutes almost 20-25 per cent at present will move up to 50 per cent in next three years," he said.