SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited was incorporated as a private limited company with the name 'SBI Cards and Payment Services Private Limited' on May 15, 1998 in New Delhi. On the conversion of Company to a public limited company, the name was changed to, 'SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited' on August 20, 2019. The Company is engaged in the business of issuing credit cards to consumers. It also acts as corporate insurance agent for selling insurance policies to credit card customers.
SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited is a subsidiary of State Bank of India (SBI), is the second largest credit card issuer in the country. With more than 1.68 crore cards in force, the Company offer financial access through wide range of value-added payment products and services that fulfill transactional and credit requirements. It focus on delivering a diverse portfolio of credit cards, which support cashless and contactless digital payments in India while ensuring safety and transparency of transactions.
The Company started its operations in 1998, and since then SBI's parentage and highly trusted brand have allowed it to quickly establish a reputation of trust, reliability and transparency with its cardholders. According to the RBI, the company has grown its business faster than the Indian credit card market over the past three years both in terms of numbers of credit cards outstanding and amounts of credit card spends, and the company believes it has achieved this by leveraging its strength and capitalizing on India's favourable economic and demographic changes, including its strong macroeconomic performance, rising affluence, increasing consumer demand, rapid urbanization and the growth of e-commerce platforms. From March 31, 2017 to March 31, 2019 its total credit card spends grew at a 54.2% CAGR (as compared to a 35.6% CAGR for the overall credit card industry, according to the RBI) and the number of its credit cards outstanding grew at a 34.5% CAGR (as compared to a 25.6% CAGR for the overall credit card industry, according to the RBI).
SBI Cards has a broad credit card portfolio that includes SBI Card-branded credit cards as well as co-branded credit cards that bear both the SBI Card brand and its co-brand partners' brands. The Company offers four primary SBI Card branded credit cards: SimplySave, SimplyClick, Prime and Elite, each catering to a varying set of cardholder needs. The Company is also the largest co-brand credit card issuer in India according to the CRISIL Report, and it has partnerships with several major players in the travel, fuel, fashion, healthcare and mobility industries, including Air India, Apollo Hospitals, BPCL, Etihad Guest, Fbb, IRCTC, OLA Money and Yatra, among others. The Credit cards portfolio is tailored to meet a diverse range of cardholder needs across the entire spectrum of its cardholders' income profiles and lifestyles, from the 'premium' cardholder category to the 'affluent', 'mass affluent', 'mass' and 'new to credit' categories. The Company issues its credit cards in partnership with the Visa, MasterCard and RuPay payment networks, and it is continuously looking to expand its payment network partnerships to broaden the reach and functionality of its credit card offerings.
SBI Cards has a diversified customer acquisition network that enables it to engage prospective customers across multiple channels. The Company deploys a sales force of 32,677 outsourced sales personnel as of December 31, 2019 operating out of 145 Indian cities and which engages prospective customers through multiple channels, including physical points of sale in bank branches, retail stores, malls, fuel stations, railway stations, airports, corporate parks and offices, as well as through tele-sales, online channels, email, SMS marketing and mobile applications. The Company is the leading player in open market customer acquisition in India according to the CRISIL Report. SBI Cards had a presence in 3,190 open market points of sale across India as of December 31, 2019. In addition, its partnership with SBI provides access to SBI's extensive network of 21,961 branches across India, which enables it to market their credit cards to SBI's vast customer base of 445.5 million customers as of December 31, 2019. Its extensive physical customer acquisition network is complemented by its digital sales and marketing capabilities which include their website, mobile application and online, email and SMS marketing platforms.
SBI Card sourced 34.1 lakh new accounts in FY 2020. It launched 8 new products across diverse categories and segments such as Lifestyle Home Centre, Max, Spar SBI Card, Club Vistara SBI Card, Central Bank of India SBI Card, City Union Bank SBI Card, Shaurya SBI Card, SBI Card Vyapaar Unnati, Ola Money SBI Card and IRCTC SBI Card Premier. It started issuing RuPay denominated card from September 2019 with the launch of Shaurya Cards. It engaged with leading merchant partners across categories from apparel, consumer durables to online shopping, healthcare, utility bill payments to provide value to cardholders on transacting with SBI Card.
In FY20, in line with Hon'ble NCLT Order dated June 04, 2019, erstwhile SBI Business Process Management Services Pvt. Ltd (SBIBPMSL) amalgamated with SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited from the appointed date i.e. April 1, 2018. Pursuant to said Amalgamation, the Company allotted 9,51,12,054 fully paid equity shares of Rs. 10 each to the shareholders of erstwhile SBIBPMSL.
In FY 2021, the Company launched BPCL SBI Card OCTANE, a premium version of the existing card. It also launched AURUM in a superior
premium segment card, targeted at CXO's. It sourced 26.9 Lac new accounts in FY21. It launched IRCTC SBI Card on RuPay platform, Delhi Metro SBI Card, Paytm SBI Card, SBI Elite and Prime Amex-SBI Card. It partnered with American Express (AMEX network to issue credit cards on their payment network.
In FY 2022, the Company launched Nature's Basket SBI Card, SBI Card PULSE, Aditya Birla SBI Card, SBI Card SPRINT and Fabindia SBI Card. It sourced 35.72 lacs new accounts to reach 1.38 Crore in FY 2022. Apart from this, it focused on digital acquisition channels for sourcing of new accounts.
During FY2023, the Company introduced 52.02 lakh new accounts. The Company launched three card variants comprising of CASHBACK SBI Card, Aditya Birla SBI Card and Punjab & Sind Bank (PSB) SBI Card.