YES Bank, the private sector lender, is the latest to join the credit card space. It plans go aggressive in its push to acquire a market share of 17-18 per cent over the next few years.
“Several foreign banks have not been aggressive in the credit card space and that will also help us to increase our market share. In the next five years we plan to issue 4-5 million credit cards and capture a market share of 17-18 per cent. We want to be one of the top three players in the next five years,” said Pralay Mondal, Senior Group President of the Bank, interacting with media persons after announcing the launch of their credit cards.
As per the RBI data, at the end of last financial year ending March 31 this year, there were 24.5 million cards in the system.
In order to grow the market share, unlike the other lenders who have been mainly focusing on the existing customer base, YES Bank will also be actively looking at giving cards to the non-bank customers.
Mondal said that he plans to use credit cards also as an acquisition tool for its other loan products. Most banks have refrained from this aggressive open sourcing after the 2008-09 crisis, as it had led to a surge in bad loans in this unsecured portfolio.
YES Bank is confident of adopting open sourcing, as they believe that with the help of credit bureaus, the risk can be minimised.
The lender has launched seven variants of credit cards and the rate of interest will range between 1.2-2.4 per cent per month.
In order to expand its base, the bank will also look at targeting corporate clients. This is in line with the bank’s overall strategy where they have been looking at growing retail book to about 20 per cent by 2020.
