The American Credit crisis has led many Foreign Banks operating in India to take a cautious approach when issuing credit facilities. Records obtained from the RBI in 2010 suggests that they trimmed credit card customer base in India by a whopping 18% from 7.08 Mn in Dec-09 to 5.8 Mn at the end of Dec-2010.
Citibank the largest and HSBC the second largest issuers of Credit Cards in this Category [Foreign Banks] cut their customer base. RBS (ABN Amro), Barclays and Deutsche bank also trimmed their card base.
American Express bucked the trend and added 10% during this period while Standard Chartered has managed to maintain its base and seize the second spot from HSBC.
One surprising trend that is evident is these Foreign banks issue very less debit cards and the number stands at 4.02 Mn 🙂
Complete Trends of Credit Cards in India is available here.