Kolkata: Credit cards are becoming popular fast in India. If the expenditure during the festive season is any indication, they rose to record highs, driven by the higher consumption nudged up both by the GST rejig and the festive demand. In a report, SBI Research, the think tank of the country’s biggest lender, State Bank of India, it was mentioned that the on September 23, more than 1 crore credit card transactions were performed, show data released by the Reserve Bank of India.
“By looking at the daily settlement data release by RBI (Data Releases – Reserve Bank of India), more than 1 crore credit card transactions were done on 23 Sept 25, with a value of more than Rs 6400 crore, compared to the average transaction of ~70 lakh, with average value of Rs 4200 crore,” said SBI Research in its report.
Is the Oct 21 expenditure a record?
This expenditure pales before the record set on October 21. “Similarly on Diwali (21 Oct’25), transactions on credit card crossed 1.23 crore with a value of Rs 7328 crore. This shows significant increase in consumption during festive period…Looking at the credit card spends during Sep-Ocf 25 over Sep-Oct 24, it indicate a jump of ~5% in value,” said the report.
SBI Research observed that credit card spends jumped mostly in E-commerce, especially in the merchant categories such as auto, grocery stores, electronics, furnishing and travel. Loading, railways and travel agents also recorded big demand, thanks to the festive season.
Data also showed that demand has gone up across regions but some cities have recorded high growth. These are in and around the national capital in Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad.
Disaggregating the consumption through credit cards, the report also found out the following spending patterns in PoS vs E-commerce. PoS recorded the highest share of around 27% on fuel, about 17% on electricals/electronics and about 16% on departmental stores and grocery. In E-commerce, about 38% expenditure was on utility and services while about 17% was accounted for by supermarkets and grocery. About 9% of the expenditure was accounted for by travel agents, thanks to the festive demand for leisure trips and holidays.