India’s credit card market expands to 119 million, PSU banks gain in spends

Mumbai: India’s credit card market crossed the 119-million mark in March, but the gains are far from evenly distributed. Data released by the Reserve Bank of India shows that four lenders-HDFC Bank, , and Axis Bank- continue to dominate the market, even as the competitive dynamics within that group are shifting.

is pulling away from the pack. The largest private sector lender in the country increased its share of outstanding cards to 22.2% in March from 21.7% a year earlier, while its dominance in spending intensified, with an increase in transaction value share to 29.8%, underscoring its ability to drive higher usage among its existing cardholders.

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SBI Cards held its ground at 18.7% of cards in use, and gained meaningfully in spends, with transaction value share climbing to 19.3%. and saw some moderation in their market positions during the month. While ICICI Bank’s share of outstanding cards, transaction value and volume declined gradually, maintained a broadly stable card base even as its share of transaction volume fell marginally.

“The credit card base expanded from 11 crore in March 2025 to 11.9 crore in March 2026, reflecting continued deepening of across the system,” said Saurabh Bhalerao, associate director, BFSI Research, CareEdge Ratings. “Despite this broad-based expansion, the market structure remains highly concentrated-a limited set of dominant issuers, primarily three large private sector banks and five major , together account for nearly 80% of cards in circulation.”

The total outstanding credit card base expanded 8% year-on-year and 0.8% month-on-month in March. Public sector banks led the charge with an 11.3% year-on-year growth, while private banks recorded 8.3% expansion, reflecting selective growth amid evolving risk considerations. Foreign banks continued to rationalise their portfolios, with outstanding cards declining 5.4% year-on-year.

The private-public divide became more pronounced in spending patterns as well. Private banks accounted for 72.6% of total card spending in March, but their share fell 3.15 percentage points year-on-year, analysis by Care Ratings showed. Average spending per card at private banks fell 4% to ₹18,948, pointing to some moderation in high-value discretionary usage.

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Public sector banks, meanwhile, recorded a healthy 17% increase in per-card spending to ₹16,847, driven by improved customer engagement and the growing use of (UPI)-linked credit -with their deepening penetration into tier-2 and tier-3 markets fuelling incremental customer acquisition.

“PSU (public sector undertaking) banks have been able to drive growth on the back of their wider distribution networks and growing traction from co-branded partnerships with e-commerce and fintech platforms,” said Prakash Agarwal, partner at Gefion Capital.