The government on Wednesday said that bad debts in credit cards increased to Rs 5,094 crore (Rs 50.94 billion) last fiscal from Rs 2,852 crore (Rs 28.52 billion) in the previous year.

The impaired credit cards receivables constituted 17 per cent of total outstanding against the plastic instrument in 2008-09 against 10 per cent a year ago, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply. At the end of the past fiscal, there were 2.46 crore credit cardholders in the country.

The maximum card holders was of ICICI Bank, which constitute over 30 per cent of the total at 77.82 lakh, followed by another private sector lender HDFC Bank at 43.88 lakh, the minister said.

Among the state-run lenders, the State Bank cardholders were the largest. At the end of March 2009, there were 27.23 lakh plastic money holders of the country's largest bank.

Among the foreign banks, Citibank issued maximum card at 26.40 lakh, followed by HSBC at 19.75 lakh and Standard Chartered at 11.45 lakh.