Mastercard, a technology company in the global payments industry, is eyeing leadership position in the co-branded space in the burgeoning Indian credit card market, said a top official.

“We see the Indian credit card industry growing from the existing five crore cards-in-force to 10 crore by 2024. The maximum opportunity is 24 crore, out of which, majority we will have in the co-branded space. There is no specific timeline for the industry reaching the 24 crore level,” Rajeev Kumar, Senior Vice-President, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard, told BusinessLine .

Credit card growth has been robust — at CAGR of 22 per cent — in the Indian system, with the unique credit cards growing from 1.8 crore four years back (since demonetisation) to 5 crore now.

The average credit card spend has galloped from $1.8 billion per month to $8.5 billion per month.

Of the monthly average spend of $8.5 billion, nearly 50 per cent is done online (mainly e-commerce) and the rest is offline, said Kumar.

Mastercard, which is a leading payments processor, has already committed $2 billion in investments in India, of which, $1 billion has already been deployed between 2014 and 2019.

Stating that the co-branded space will be the future, Kumar said: “We are creating the narrative in the co-branded space. Till 2017, banks were the leaders commanding the co-brand. In last two years, the merchants are deciding who the network is and who the bank is; in the last six months, Mastercard is leading, and we are going to the merchants and helping them choosing the bank partner.”

He expressed confidence that Mastercard will be able to build on the recent wins in the co-branded space (Flipkart, IndiGo and now Zomato) to get a bunch of merchants on board in the coming years.

“There is tremendous potential in India and if we have at least one credit card in every household, that itself will make it 24 crore cards,” he added.

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