Indians Credit Card Usage 30 Times More than Debit Card Payments : RBI

Indians use a credit card for an average payment amount of about Rs 55,000 annually. This amount is nearly 30 times the money spent through debit cards. According to RBI’s data, the number of debit cards are more than 15 times that of credit cards in the country.

RBI’s data also shows that, there were 1.76 crore outstanding credit cards in the country during 2011-12 which rose to 1.8 crore by June 2012. While the number of debit cards stood over 29 crore as on June 30, 2012 against 27.8 crore debit cards in the last fiscal.

During 2011-12, the total amount of money spent through credit cards was Rs 96,614 crore, with an average payment amount of Rs 54,738 per card in a year. Whereas total amount of transactions worth Rs 53,432 crore were used using debit cards in 2011-12, leading an average transaction size of Rs 1,920 per card in a year.

Experts say that, a credit card was used by its holder over 18 times in 2011-12 while a debit card is used 1.18 times during the same time. This wide difference in usage trend shows that credit cards are mostly used for purchasing high-value items, while a debit card is used just as an alternative to cash.