The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) Payment Systems Report highlighted that between 2019 and 2024, credit card transactions doubled in volume and almost tripled in value.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh
During the same period, however, debit card transactions witnessed a decline, both in volume and value.
According to the report, credit card transaction volumes increased from 2,087 million in 2019 to 4,472 million in 2024, while the total value rose from Rs 7.1 trillion to Rs 20.4 trillion.
In the first half of 2025, 2,663 million transactions amounting to Rs 11.1 trillion were recorded.
During the same period, in volume terms, debit card transactions declined from 4,953 million in 2019 to 1,738 million in 2024, while in value terms, they fell from Rs 6.83 trillion to Rs 5.15 trillion.
In the first half of 2025, debit cards recorded 691 million transactions valued at Rs 2.22 trillion.
“While credit cards are being increasingly used for online purchases and credit access, debit cards are mostly used for cash withdrawals and basic transactions.
“Both instruments, however, face growing competition from digital alternatives,” the RBI said in its report.
The report also highlighted that private sector banks continue to dominate the credit card segment, focusing on digital and co-branded offerings for customers.
Their market share rose from 65.8 per cent in June 2020 to 70.8 per cent in June 2025, while the share of public sector banks (PSBs) increased from 22.5 per cent to 24.1 per cent during the same period.
In contrast, foreign banks saw a sharp decline in their share — from 11.7 per cent to 4.1 per cent — as their outstanding credit cards fell from 6.7 million to 4.5 million.
Small finance banks, meanwhile, had issued 1 million cards by June 2025.
As of June 2025, there were 1,116.4 million outstanding cards in India, including 111.2 million credit cards and 1,005.2 million debit cards.
According to the report, unlike in the credit card segment, PSBs continue to dominate the debit card space, although their market share declined from 70.6 per cent (597 million cards outstanding) in June 2020 to 63.5 per cent (638 million cards outstanding) in June 2025, partly due to growing competition from UPI-based payments.
During this period, private sector banks increased their share from 19.7 per cent (167 million cards) to 25.4 per cent (255 million cards).
Small finance banks (SFBs) and payments banks also expanded their presence, with the number of debit cards issued by SFBs doubling from 15 million to 31 million between June 2020 and June 2025.
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