This follows a slight dip in April, when spends stood at ₹1.84 lakh crore, and a record high of ₹2 lakh crore in March.
On a year-on-year basis, credit card spends
rose 14.5% in May.
According to a report by Equirus Securities, the credit card industry added 7.62 lakh new cards during May. HDFC Bank led with 2.75 lakh additions, followed by YES Bank (1.84 lakh), SBI Card (1.27 lakh), and Axis Bank (1.06 lakh).
Overall digital merchant payments across instruments rose 20.6% year-on-year to ₹9.4 lakh crore in May, Equirus added.
Within this, UPI-P2M (person-to-merchant) payments grew 25% YoY to ₹7 lakh crore, and credit card transactions increased by 15% YoY to ₹1.9 lakh crore. In contrast, debit card spends fell 15% YoY to ₹36,800 crore.
E-commerce accounted for 63.3% of total credit card spending in May, marginally up from 63.1% in April, the Equirus report noted. The average transaction size for e-commerce was ₹5,200, compared to ₹2,900 for POS (point-of-sale) spends.
In terms of issuer performance, HDFC Bank recorded the largest increase in spending in absolute terms, followed by ICICI Bank, SBI Card, and Axis Bank, based on Equirus’ market share data. However, HDFC Bank’s spend market share declined by 81 basis points to 27.3%, while SBI Card gained 110 basis points to reach 17.1%.
Equirus Securities expects credit card spending in June to settle around ₹1.8 lakh crore, citing stable consumption trends.
Meanwhile, according to Emkay Global Financial Services, RuPay cards, now comprising 20–25% of the card base, are fueling UPI-linked spends. Despite this growth, revolve rates across the industry remain low at around 24%, limiting interest income.
SBI Cards, the only listed credit card company, is focusing on improving margins through higher APRs. The company has increased its annualised percentage rate (APR) to 45%, up from 42%, to offset margin pressures, as per Emkay’s management meet update.
SBI Cards’ return on assets (RoA) is expected to improve to 4.2–5.6% in FY26, from 3.1% in FY25, driven by margin expansion and moderation in credit costs in the second half of the year, the report added.
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