Worldline India, a payment processing company, recently conducted a study Worldline India’s Card Payment report 2014–15 on the impact of Jan Dhan scheme on debit and credit cards. The company concluded that with increasing enrollments in Jan Dhan Yojana, the debit card and credit card base in India has grown by 40% and 9.8%, respectively.
Wordline also tracked the spending pattern of consumers along with most popular places for debit and credit card usage, such as ATMs and POS terminals. With respect to the number of transactions, use of debit cards recorded 36.5% Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) while credit cards posted 21% CAGR.
According to the report, India has witnessed a 25% growth in card spends wherein Rs 1.9 lakh crores is spent through credit cards and Rs 1.2 lakh crore using debit cards. Mobile wallets and prepaid cash cards accounted for 3% of the total spends.
Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have the greatest share (83%) in the debit card base, with State Bank of India alone accounting for the largest share with 29%. PSBs were followed by private banks with 16% and foreign banks with only 1%. For credit cards though the story was quite the opposite. Private sector banks recorded a share of 57%, with HDFC Bank—the market leader— acquiring 28% of the space.