Credit card spending clocks double-digit jump in January
Consumer expenditure through credit cards has shot up by 10.8 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.84 lakh crore in January 2025 with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank recording the highest increase, according to the latest data compiled by the RBI.
The country’s leading credit card issuer HDFC Bank registered a 15.91 per cent year-on-year growth to Rs 50,664 crore during the month while ICICI Bank’s credit card spending increased by 20.25 per cent to Rs 35,682 crore. However, SBI registered a 6 per cent decline to Rs 28,976 crore. Similarly, Axis Bank’s customers’ spending fell by 0.45 per cent to Rs 20,212 crore in January.
The per-card expenditure during the month worked out to Rs 16,910, which represents a 1.09 per cent increase over the same month last year.
HDFC Bank issued 2,99,761 new credit cards in January while SBI Cards added 2,34,537 new cards and ICICI Bank issued another 1,83,157 credit cards. However, Axis Bank ’s net credit card additions declined by 14,862 during the month.
The number of credit cards has more than doubled to around 10.8 crore in the last five years but the number of debit cards has remained relatively stable, according to RBI data.
Overall digital payments across India have recorded a double-digit jump of 11.1 per cent year-on-year as of September 2024, according to the RBI's index that measures the adoption of online transactions.
The RBI has also highlighted in a recent report that UPI has been the most significant contributor to the growth of digital payments in India due to its usefulness and ease of use.
According to the report, the share of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the country’s digital payments has surged from 34 per cent in 2019 to an impressive 83 per cent in 2024, with a remarkable CAGR (cumulative average growth rate of 74 per cent over the last five years.
In contrast, the share of other payment systems like RTGS, NEFT, IMPS, credit cards, debit cards, etc., in digital payments volume declined from 66 per cent to 17 per cent during the same period, the report states.
At a macro level, the volume of UPI transactions increased from 375 crore in 2018 to 17,221 crore in 2024, whereas the total value of transactions surged from Rs 5.86 lakh crore in 2018 to Rs 246.83 lakh crore in 2024. This amounts to a five-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 89.3 per cent and 86.5 per cent in terms of volume and value, respectively, the report stated.
