The Indian credit card industry has never been this bullish before. Private banks are scaling up their card business, fintechs are looking for a way in and consumer-focused apps are trying to form partnerships for co-branded plastic. 

In terms of the number of credit cards, the market has hit a new peak: over 7 crore. And the transactions? Uh, that’s a different story.

State of swipe: The per transaction spend per card in the country is about Rs 4,500, according to RBI’s latest data. It’s a marginal increase from around Rs 3,800 in May last year. 

This means that while there are more credit cards now, the transaction amount is not growing significantly. SBI Card, a listed credit-card major, reported an average ticket size of Rs 9,166 per month for the last financial year, down from Rs 11,583 and Rs 11,833 in the preceding two years.