In credit cards too, HDFC Bank is the market leader with a share of 31% (FY16) by number of cards outstanding making it the best positioned to capitalize on key transactions effected through online payment gateways; ecommerce players.
Moreover, it also ensures a huge merchant tie up that it has by virtue of its card dominance which it can leverage even more effectively as more transactions are routed digitally. It also allows the bank to provide its customers with the “extra’ discount when the customer is
doing online shopping through the bank’s portal.
Interestingly, HDFC Bank is already a prominent player (top 3) in the mobile banking space too with a ~18% share of all mobile transactions. This helps to further reinforce our view that as India increasingly shifts to using mobiles for transactions, HDFC Bank
may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of that change. Mobile banking together accounts for <1% of the total payments; but is likely to rise very rapidly in coming years. Hence, a dominant share of mobile, credit cards and payments markets positioned it uniquely as the possibly the only bank that is so well positioned to capitalize on the expected surge seen in digital banking.
