Private sector lender RBL Bank resumed issuing credit cards on rival Visa’s payment network on September 15, two months after Mastercard was hit by a regulatory ban.
The Reserve Bank of India on July 14 this year barred Mastercard from issuing any new cards for non-compliance with data localization requirements. The move came as a blow to several lenders, including RBL Bank, which was completely dependent on the US payments company for its credit card business.
RBL Bank said it had just signed up with Visa on July 14, and achieved technology integration in record time to resume new issuance.
Its head of retail business thanked Visa and technology partner Fisher and expressed confidence in meeting its target of issuing 12-14 million credit cards in FY22.
Visa’s business development head for India Sujai Raina said the company aims to enable digital payments and help customers easily access credit offerings from issuers.
Credit cards contribute 37.5% to the retail book for the lender, which has a 5% market share in this segment. Its credit card book had grown by 17% to 12,039 crore as of June, and had 30.69 lakh cards outstanding as of July.
The bank in its guidance had said that by mid-September, it will resume issuance and is expected to make an average of 1 lakh cards a month.
Shares of RBL Bank were trading 2.42% higher at Rs 179.60 per piece on the BSE, compared to a gain of 0.59% on the benchmark.
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