ICICI Bank goes slow on credit cards

India's largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, is slowing down its credit card business and has cut its card base over the past year, Sachin Khandelwal, senior general manager for retail assets, said in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Khandelwal was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the ICICI Bank-Singapore Airlines Visa Platinum Credit Card, which is aimed at Indians travelling abroad.

"At present, our credit card base is 7.5 million," he said. Khandelwal, however, declined to comment on specific details, such as the magnitude of the reduction in the bank's credit card business over the past year.

The country's second-largest lender, which spearheaded the growth of retail finance in the country, has also been going slow on retail loans for the past few years.

The bank's gross non-performing assets from its retail finance portfolio touched a whopping Rs 5,552 crore (Rs 55.52 billion) in 2007-08, up 78.2 per cent from 2006-07. The bank's gross NPAs at the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year stood at Rs 8,988.08 crore (Rs 89.88 billion) as compared to Rs 6,474.84 crore (Rs 64.74 billion) in the year-ago period.

On the co-branded card with Singapore Airlines, Khandelwal said that it was a niche offering targeted at ICICI Bank's existing premium credit card customers.

"We are looking at existing customers of ICICI Bank and Singapore Airlines rather than trying to reach out to new customers," he said. According to Khandelwal, 10 per cent of ICICI credit cards are premium cards.

The features of the bank's co-branded credit card include automatic enrolment for Singapore Airlines' KrisFlyer programme and a range of special offers for shopping and dining.

The co-branded card carries a fixed annual charge of Rs 6,000. Khandelwal said he doesn't expect customers to be deterred by the annual fee since some of the bank's existing cards have a higher annual charge.