Yes Bank enters credit card space, eyes No 3 slot in 4 yrs

Mumbai, Aug 23 (PTI) Setting an ambitious target of havingfive million customers by 2020 and to become the No 3 playerin the extremely competitive industry, mid-sized lender YesBank today made a foray into the credit card market. At a time when lenders are playing it safe by sticking totheir own customers to sell credit cards, the bank plans to goall out seeking customers from outside for the unsecuredlending product. "Credit card is central to our customer acquisition plans.We don’t believe there is anything like an internal customeror an external customer," the bank’s senior group presidentfor retail and business banking Pralay Mondal said. The bank is targeting to control up to 18 per cent of theindustry by spends by notching up around five million activecard customers by 2020, which Mondal said will make it thethird biggest player. Mondal, who is credited with HDFC Bank’s successes onretail front, said he is confident of achieving the ambitioustarget, saying the market is skewed towards a few players now. With over 7.25 million cards, HDFC Bank is the largestcard issuer now, followed by ICICI Bank with 3.65 millioncards and SBI with 3.62 million. Even though retail segment has gained greater focus, banksare shy of growing their unsecured books comprising creditcard folios. Mondal said the growth in cashless payments to 5 per centfrom the present 2 per cent, a greater acceptance inelectronic payments by the small businesses, card’s features,technology to assess a customer’s risk. The card proposition includes seven variants and lowestinterest rates in the industry, starting from 1.2 per cent permonth to 2.4 per cent, he said, adding the card fees willstart from Rs 250 and go up as per the variant a customerchooses. Head of credit cards business, Rajanish Prabhu said ateam of over 400 have already been hired for the business. PTIAA BEN NRBABKSDM