RBI ban on new bank cards sale hit market share; will come again with a bang as soon as embargo lifted: HDFC Bank

The RBI’s ban on promoting new bank cards has impacted market share on an incremental foundation, HDFC Bank stated on Wednesday, promising to get again to the market “with a bang” as soon as the “temporal” embargo is lifted and recoup the losses.
The financial institution’s head of shopper finance, digital banking and knowledge know-how, Parag Rao, stated that it has used the final six months to “introspect, re-engineer and innovate” in regards to the playing cards enterprise, the place it has 15.5 million clients.
The financial institution has misplaced its market share by a few proportion factors due to the ban, however the actions taken internally have ensured that it continues to carry on to market share by spends, he stated.
In December, the RBI acted towards repeated technological outages at HDFC Bank over two years by slapping unprecedented penalties, which included a ban on any new bank card issuance and likewise prohibition on launching new digital initiatives.

“We have got very aggressive plans to get back in the market with a big bang… You will rapidly see HDFC Bank not just regaining market share but also significantly increasing our spend market share,” Rao stated.
Without sharing any particulars over when he expects the ban to be lifted, Rao stated inside 3-4 months of the ban getting lifted, one ought to count on a correction within the incremental market share again to the pre-ban ranges, launch of latest merchandise and options and likewise partnerships which have been solid throughout this era.
“We were very clear that this is at best a temporal situation. During the six months when we were not issuing new credit cards, we increased our merchant acceptance base, our liability franchise increased and today we are sitting on a large base of already analytically data mined customers who have already kept ready and pre-approved,” he stated.
The “large sales force” has been skilled, re-skilled and primed for the aggressive play forward and backend processes for them have additionally been made extra streamlined, Rao stated.
He admitted that rivals have seized up on the chance as soon as HDFC Bank stopped issuing the playing cards, amidst experiences on how ICICI Bank and SBI, amongst others have grown. It could be famous that HDFC Bank’s bank card clients decreased by 4.67 lakh between December and April, after they stood at 14.9 million, whereas SBI has gained over 6 lakh new playing cards and ICICI gained 10 lakh.
The financial institution has been in fixed dialogue with RBI ever because the ban was imposed and has upgraded its techniques as per the indications from the regulator, Rao stated, including that it has now offered a plan which focuses on the fast, brief time period, mid-term and long run plan to the central financial institution.
“We are awaiting the comments from the RBI. We are hopeful that RBI will be satisfied with the plan which we had submitted,” he stated.
Rao stated the financial institution’s investments in know-how had been already at par with world requirements, however the current regulatory motion will see greater spends on know-how over the following two or three years.

Reiterating its focus outlined earlier, he stated outages do occur they usually occur with rivals as properly, however the necessary facet can be the way it manages its manner out of a disaster.
The financial institution’s shares had been buying and selling 0.17 per cent down at Rs 1,499 apiece on the BSE at 1344 hrs, as towards features of 0.28 per cent on the benchmark.