When was the last time you got a credit card sales call from your bank?
Or were approached by a salesperson at a Metro Station or an airport?
Or you might have noticed the return of credit card advertisements in your call logs, social media, e-mails, SMS Box, or even WhatsApp. Surely you haven’t missed the credit card pitches during the recently concluded IPL and other events now? If your answer is yes, then welcome to the brave new world of fintech credit cards.
Despite all the hype by banks and credit card issuers, Indians have not really embraced credit cards. According to RBI data, almost 62 million credit cards were in use in India in the financial year 2021, corresponding to less than 6% of our total population.
Many have argued that the lower card penetration rate is yet one more marker of the true ‘consuming’ class in India, estimated variously at between 120 million to 300 million worthwhile users, depending on product/service category.
Difficulty in getting one has played a role, but users in India may now apply, be approved, and get a credit card ready to use in less than 5 minutes. Thanks to the recent revolutions in data analytics and tremendous development in the Indian Fintech Ecosystem.
What does this ecosystem look like?
Fintech is one of the hottest sectors in India and abroad, and has attracted record amounts of money, burning heavily on aggressive social media advertising, performance marketing, paying influencers to promote their product, and…
