The Reserve Bank of India on July 14 this year barred Mastercard from issuing any new cards for not complying with data localization requirements. The move came as a blow to several lenders, including RBL Bank, which was completely dependent on the US payments company for its credit card business.
RBL Bank said it had just signed up with Visa on July 14, and the technology integration was achieved in record time to resume new issuance.
Its head of retail business thanked Visa and technology partner Fisher and expressed confidence in meeting its target of issuing 12-14 million credit cards in FY22.
Visa’s business development head for India Sujai Raina said the company aims to enable digital payments and help customers access credit offerings from issuers with ease.
Credit cards contribute 37.5 per cent to the retail book for the lender, which has a 5 per cent market share in this segment. Its credit card book had grown by 17 per cent to Rs 12,039 crore till June and had 30.69 lakh cards outstanding as of July.
The bank in its guidance had said that by mid-September, it will resume issuance and is expected to make an average of 1 lakh cards a month.
Shares of RBL Bank were trading 2.42 per cent higher at Rs 179.60 per piece at 1252 pm on the BSE, compared to a gain of 0.59 per cent on the benchmark.