Private sector lender IndusInd Bank is in the race to buy Deutsche Bank's credit card business in India and hopes to finalise a deal in the next few weeks.IndusInd Bank, along with Axis Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank and Karnataka Bank, have evinced interest in acquisition of the credit card business of Deutsche Bank, sources said.
A deal is likely to be finalised in the next few weeks, sources added.
When contacted Deutsche Bank and IndusInd Bank declined to comment on the issue.
As a precursor to its entry into the credit card business, IndusInd Bank appointed Anil Ramachandran as the head of its cards business in November last year.
Ramachandran has already commenced setting up the credit cards business of the bank. Incidentally, Ramachandran was with Deutsche Bank as head of the credit cards business for India.
Earlier, he had worked for Citibank, where he was also associated with the credit card function in various senior positions.
As far as the credit card business is concerned, transactions worth Rs. 6,934.65 crore (Rs. 69.346 billion) were carried out in January, 2011, registering a growth of 27.82 per cent vis-a-vis the same period last year.
Credit card transactions during January, 2010, were at Rs. 5,425.51 crore (Rs. 54.255 billion), according to the RBI data.
The number of credit cards in circulation have, however, declined by over 10 per cent to Rs. 1.81 crore (Rs. 18.1 million) as on January 31, 2011, from 2.02 crore (Rs. 20.2 million) in the same period last year.
During the April-January period of the fiscal, the total transactions carried out via credit cards increased by 21.78 per cent to Rs. 62,335.44 crore (Rs. 623.354 billion) from Rs. 51,188.94 crore (Rs. 511.889 billion) in the April-January period of 2010-11.
