Six Million credit cards cancelled last fiscal
Six million credit cards or about a quarter of the total number of cards
a year ago were terminated in 2009-10. According to the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) data, as of March 2010, there were 18.3 million credit cards in
circulation, which is the same number as it was five years back.
The fall began just about two years ago, after the credit card industry
touched a peak level of 27 million cards in June 2008. In the next nine months,
the industry cut about three million cards. The pace then accelerated last
fiscal particularly in March 2010, when nearly two million cards went out of
use.
Rising defaults in the credit card industry as well as unsecured
personal loans portfolio by customers as a consequence of the slowdown in the
economy a year ago forced a number of banks to rethink their growth strategy.
Besides, regulatory warnings and court strictures about aggressive recovery
practices of many banks also forced them to go slow in this business.
