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Soumik Dey
Soumik Dey

UNNATI

SBI launches credit card for masses

sbi-unnati-credit-card Union minister Piyush Goyal and SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya launch the SBI Unnati card | Sanjay Ahlawat

Bank to issue credit cards to those with no credit history

With one out of every four Indians having a bank account with State bank of India, the banker to the nation now aspires to be the largest credit card issuer in the country. On Tuesday, the bank did just that with launch of its 'Unnati' credit cards.

"Presently lack of credit history has been a challenge in increasing credit card penetration in the country. In such a scenario, this card is likely to enhance credit card penetration and facilitate in generation of credit history for new users, which will eventually help bringing them into the organised financial stream," said Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson, State Bank of India, speaking at the launch of the Unnati card in Delhi.

"Demonetisation has yielded clear benefits for the country. While it's important to give the formal economy a boost, it is the transformation to a cashless digital economy which is of the most importance," said Piyush Goyal, union minister for coal, power, renewable energy and mining, at the launch of the Unnati card.

"Unnati card is an effective tool to help more people to transact digitally," said Goyal, urging the mother bank to make the best of its captive 400 million plus customer base after merger of all the associate banks.

The SBI chairperson said that the idea for the card was devised after the bank opened 89 lakh jandhan accounts during the over 50-days demonetisation exercise. "We got these deposits in these accounts and thought to ourselves that giving a 45-day credit on these deposits is a huge empowerment for any people," Bhattacharya told THE WEEK.

Highlighting on the key features of the card, Vijay Jasuja, CEO, SBI Cards said: "We will offer the card to anyone with a deposit of Rs 25,000 to Rs 5 lakh in their Jan dhan accounts or as fixed deposits with SBI. The card's credit limit would be 80 per cent of the bank deposit value and free of cost for first four years. We want to help the individual taking the card to start building a credit history with this card."

SBI Cards became the second largest credit card issuer in the country last year with more than 4.3 million customer base.

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Topics : #SBI

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