NBFCs might be allowed to enter the credit card space

The Reserve Bank of India plans to allow Non-Banking Finance Companies to issue credit cards independently. As of now the NBFCs are issuing credit cards in collaboration with shadow banks.

Currently, the NBFCs have been restricted from accessing the credit card market because of high-access barriers, particularly for the inssuance of general insurance cards are not allowed to issue cards such as charge cards, debit cards and Stored-value cards.

The trend of buy now pay later (BNPL) has been at an all-time high, it is believed that this sector is set to grow over ten times within the next four years. The brands have been successful in luring online shoppers by giving them interest-free credit with fewer troubles. Redseer research firm has estimated that India’s BNPL market will soar to a whopping 45-50 billion dollars by 2026 from the current 3.5 billion. Redseer also has projected that the user base will increase to 80-100 Million customers from 10-15 million. FinTech brands such as PayU, Slice and Uni Cards in association with banks, are issuing BNPL cards with prepaid credit limits to push the customer to use this service in offline mode as well.