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The country’s largest private sector lender HDFC Bank remains bullish on its cards business and said it has not witnessed a slowdown in consumption.
“In consumer finance, we are seeing robust growth in all sectors. We expect to grow further with the festival season,” said Parag Rao, Country Head - Payments Business, Marketing, HDFC Bank, pointing out that some segments have shown a slowdown but it is cyclical and not systemic.
The lender is not seeing any stress in its credit card business and non-performing assets remain well within control.
“There is no stress in our credit card business because we have not diluted our credit norms. It is important to choose the right credit and know what not to do,” Rao said.
About 60-65 per cent of the bank’s credit card customers are salaried and the remaining are self-employed.
His comments come at a time when there are concerns about a slowdown in the economy and stress in non-banking finance companies and its impact on unsecured loans. HDFC Bank also continues to see a big opportunity in the payments sector and expects its credit and debit cards business to double this fiscal. “The opportunity in the digital market is significant. We are barely at 10-12 per cent of penetration,” Rao told BusinessLine .
The bank is investing in customer acquisition and merchant acquisition. “We will be a large merchant acquirer and will enable the merchant to accept any form the customer wants to pay by,” Rao said.
The lender currently has 1.3 crore credit cards and 2.7 crore debit cards and expects “2x growth in the segment on a monthly basis”.
HDFC Bank is targeting the millennials in the age group of 20 to 35 years and has launched a new range of cards — debit, credit, EMI and prepaid — for the segment.
Rao said he is hopeful of achieving at least 20 lakh cards from the millennials segment in the next two years. HDFC Bank is also hoping to triple its merchant acquiring business this fiscal. The bank has about 17 lakh acceptance points and eight lakh merchants across all categories.
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