Tag: citi bank

All banks will soon consider offering crypto trade, says former Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Vikram Pandit, the Indian-born former CEO of Citigroup Inc and co-founder of Orogen Group, has said that banks and traditional financial institutions will soon start thinking of offering cryptocurrencies.

Pandit aired his view on the future of cryptocurrencies in an interview at a Singapore Fintech Festival. Vikram Pandit noted that in a few years to come large banks and other financial institutions will start offering crypto services directly to their customers.

“In one to three years, every large bank and, or securities firm is going to actively think about ‘shouldn’t I also be trading and selling cryptocurrency assets?”, he asked.

Vikram Pandit is a popular investor and a long-time admirer of cryptocurrencies, he has previously largely invested in one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase.

The investor expects the introduction of digital assets to be an upgrade to the paper-based banking system to make the exchange process more suitable.

Banks bet on crypto

Meanwhile, banks and other financial institutions are already taking steps and seeking ways to enter the crypto industry.

As per a recent report, banks are now paying a 50% premium to employ crypto talents. The banks are making this move because they risk losing their customers to other banks or financial institutions that offer these crypto services.

According to data collected by Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence company, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and Morgan Stanley are among the companies hiring these crypto talents.

Coinfomania reported last week that Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is set to become the first banking institution in the country to offer crypto services to its clients.

The bank noted that it will allow its customers the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets, directly via the CommBank app.

With the country’s financial watchdog looking into the regulatory implications of the bank’s move, CBA has said it would welcome clear regulatory guidelines for crypto assets.

However, while these traditional financial systems are offering clients exposure to crypto assets, none of them has decided to trade crypto directly to their clients, and that is about to change soon, according to Pandit.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , , , ,

Credit card war hots up ahead of festive season; cos announce a slew of tie-ups, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Consumers are set to get a flurry of new credit card offers as banks are stepping up on customer acquisitions. Banks are gearing up to grab a bigger share of the market which is set to grow as the economy opens up.

New card additions were the highest for ICICI at 655,000 during this fiscal while added 198,000 cards being the highest in the past 16 months.

HDFC Bank

HDFC Bank, on which RBI recently lifted a ban of issuing new credit cards, has announced a tie-up with leading payments company Paytm to start selling co-branded plastics before the onset of the festive season. The credit cards will be powered by Visa and will include offerings targeted at millennials, business owners and merchants, an official statement said.

Paytm has a reach of over 330 million consumers and 21 million merchants, while HDFC Bank has over 5 million debit, credit and prepaid cards, and serves 2 million merchants through its offerings.

HDFC Bank, the largest private-sector bank which also leads the credit card segment, was banned from issuing new credit cards for over eight months as a penalty for frequent outages. After the lifting of the ban, it outlined aggressive plans to regain lost market share in up to a year.

The bank had said that it will focus on distribution partnerships to achieve its target, under which it envisages ramping up new credit card sales to 5 lakh a month by end of the fiscal from 3 lakh in November 2021.

HDFC Bank and Paytm had last month announced a tie-up on the payments side. Paytm already has a tie-up with foreign lender Citi under which co-branded credit cards are issued. Citi is looking to exit retail banking activities in the country.

The launch of the HDFC Bank-Paytm co-branded cards is slated for next month, ahead of the festive season which typically sees a spurt in spends, the statement said, adding a full suite of products will be available by December.

Yes Bank ties up with Visa

Yes Bank has tied up with Visa to issue credit cards to its customers on the payment platform, which includes a suite of nine credit card variants. The Yes Bank card issuances were hit after RBI had banned Mastercard from issuing cards.

“The transition has been achieved within a record time of less than 60 days, ensuring ease for customers across segments,” the bank said.

Yes Bank and RBL Bank were hit the most by the Mastercard ban as their entire card network was on it. RBL Bank had announced a tie-up with Visa the day after the curbs on Mastercard were announced and resumed issuing cards from September 15. Yes Bank’s Visa credit cards, announced today, will service all segments–consumer cards, business cards, and corporate cards across YES First, YES Premia and YES Prosperity.

AU Small Finance Bank

AU Small Finance Bank (SFB) has issued over 40,000 credit cards since its launch a few months back, and more than half of them are first time users. The Jaipur based lender said it is the first SFB to enter semi-urban and rural areas with its own credit cards. It also offers a special Altura plus credit card to empower women to experience a limitless living.

In future, the bank is also working on bringing out its limited-edition cards, featuring the bank’s brand ambassadors Aamir Khan and Kiara Advani.

“The forthcoming festive season will lend further support to the picked-up momentum in the spends and new customers sourcing. However, a possible Covid 3.0 remains a key risk. We continue to believe that Citi Bank’s exit from the credit cards business along with the domestic corporate loan recovery cycle yet to pick up, provides good growth opportunities for the credit cards business, supported by improving macro-conditions,’ Axis Securities said in a note.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , , , ,

Credit card issuances, spends see sharp uptick as festive season nears, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Credit card firms are witnessing a sharp rebound in new card issuances and spends as lockdowns and restrictions ease across geographies.

On a year to date basis, the credit card industry witnessed a sharp improvement in spends, albeit on a marginally lower base in July. New card sourcing picked up momentum, supporting Cards-in-Force (CIF) growth of 10% YoY. In July 2021, the business volumes grew by 38% year on year, which was aided by the increasing shift towards online spending. Spends grew a robust 78% YoY. The new customer additions have shown an improvement in MoM and are expected to improve further thus aiding CIF growth.

ICICI Bank

Amongst the private banks, ICICI Bank continued to remain a clear outperformer registering a growth of 23%/145% YoY in CIF/Spends on a YTD basis. This resulted in the market share improvement of 190/503bps YoY in CIF/Spends to 17.7%/18.4% respectively. New card additions were the highest for ICICI at 655,000 during this fiscal

SBI Cards

SBI Cards picked up momentum with new card additions of 198,000 being the highest in the past 16 months, resulting in a CIF growth of 14% YoY. During YTDFY22, spends grew by 68% YoY, supported by a lower base a year ago. July 21 business volumes are encouraging and with the COVID 2.0 impact waning, the growth momentum is likely to sustain. Business volumes remained strong growing at 40% YoY in July 2021 and 46% on a YTD basis.

HDFC Bank

While HDFC Bank remains the market leader with a 20%+ market share in CIF/spends each, it continued to underperform as the credit card vertical was impacted due to the RBI’s restrictions on new card sourcing. However, with the RBI permitting the issuance of new cards, the company is expected to improve its performance. On a YTD basis, the performance remained muted with CIF remaining flat YoY and spends registering a growth of 60%, favoured by a lower base. The bank’s customer base came down by 222,000 customers in YTDFY22.

AU Small Finance Bank

AU Small Finance Bank, a new entrant in the credit card space since November 2020 has witnessed a strong pick-up (albeit the low base) since the commencement of the business. While the bank holds a negligible market share in terms of CIF/Spends which currently stand at 0.04/0.02% respectively on a YTDFY22 basis, increasing traction in the credit cards vertical would aid revenue streams for the bank.

The outlook

“The relaxations in the Covid related lockdowns and a gradual pick-up in the economic activities have aided a strong revival in spends, new sourcing, and business volumes in July 21. The forthcoming festive season will lend further support to the picked-up momentum in the spends and new customers sourcing. However, a possible Covid 3.0 remains a key risk. We continue to believe that Citi Bank’s exit from the credit cards business along with the domestic corporate loan recovery cycle yet to pick up, provides good growth opportunities for the credit cards business, supported by improving macro-conditions,’ Axis Securities said in a note.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , ,

Union Bank of India, Syndicate Bank post highest UPI failure rates; Paytm sees lowest decline rate

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Andhra Bank and Indian Bank recorded the second and third highest TD rate of 10.40 per cent and 9.83 per cent respectively in January.

Public sector lender Union Bank of India continued to witness the highest failure rate for UPI transactions among India’s top 30 UPI remitter banks due to technical reasons in January. From 10.75 per cent technical decline (TD) in December, the failure rate jumped to 12.89 per cent in January for Union Bank of India, data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) showed. 85.95 million UPI transactions were processed by Union Bank of India during the month out of which nearly 80 per cent were approved while 7.36 per cent were declined due to reasons including invalid pin entered by customer, incorrect beneficiary account, exceeding per transaction limit or permitted count of transactions per day or amount limit for the day, etc. Andhra Bank and Indian Bank recorded the second and third highest TD rate of 10.40 per cent and 9.83 per cent respectively in January.

Among the top 30 UPI beneficiary banks (bank of the account holder who is receiving money) as well, Indian Bank recorded the second-highest TD rate of 5.50 per cent while Syndicate Bank topped the tally with 8.65 per cent. Karnataka Bank posted the third-highest TD rate of 3.18 per cent among UPI beneficiary banks in January. State Bank of India, which posted the highest TD rate of 9.08 per cent in December, improved it to 1.52 per cent in January.

Also read: Flipkart leads Q4FY21 international net sales for Walmart

Paytm Payments Bank recorded the lowest TD rate of 0.05 per cent on 145.61 million transactions in January among remitter banks. In terms of transaction volume, the top remitter banks were SBI (664.75 million), HDFC Bank (206.65 million), Axis Bank (173.38 million), and ICICI Bank (152.06 million). Among beneficiary banks, CITI Bank saw zero transactions failing due to technical reasons on 5.94 million transactions. Paytm Payments Bank (368.90 million), SBI (354.61 million), Yes Bank (273.95 million), ICICI Bank (237.59 million), and Axis Bank (207.61 million) saw the highest volume among beneficiary banks.

Walmart-owned digital payments company PhonePe was the highest UPI app in January processing processed 968.72 million UPI transactions involving nearly Rs 1.92 lakh crore. PhonePe volume was more than 100 million transactions higher than Google’s 853.53 million transactions worth Rs 1.77 lakh crore. Paytm Payments Bank, however, remained the distant third player with a volume of 332.69 million worth Rs 37,845.76 crore.

Get live Stock Prices from BSE, NSE, US Market and latest NAV, portfolio of Mutual Funds, Check out latest IPO News, Best Performing IPOs, calculate your tax by Income Tax Calculator, know market’s Top Gainers, Top Losers & Best Equity Funds. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Financial Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel and stay updated with the latest Biz news and updates.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , , , , , , , ,