Top Credit Card Issuers in India

Data as of June 2026. Every number comes from the RBI itself, taken directly from their statistics release.

HDFC Bank is the largest credit card issuer in India with 26.75 million cards in force as of June 2026, which is 22% of the market. 40 scheduled commercial banks issue credit cards in India, and between them they carry 121.59 million cards and ₹2.01 trillion of monthly spending.

But market share is a number about the bank, not a number about you. HDFC's 22% share tells you nothing about whether the card in your wallet earns 1.5% or 3.5% on your Swiggy order.

The issuer still matters, just for different reasons than size.

It decides how badly your rewards get cut when the bank has a bad quarter, whether your fee gets waived at ₹2 lakh of spend or ₹4 lakh, and how long you have to wait if a transaction goes wrong. Those things vary a lot between banks.

So this page gives you both. The big numbers direct from the RBI, and then other details you should know about your bank (and card).

Biggest Credit Card Issuers in India by Cards in Force (June 2026)

India has 121.6 million credit cards in force, with a cumulative monthly spend of ₹2.01 trillion. Out of those, around 11 lakh cards were added in June alone.

These are the top four issuers, which between them hold roughly 70% of all credit cards in the country. (updated up to June 2026)

Market share percentages are computed from RBI cards-in-force figures. The industry base grew 0.95% month-on-month and 9.36% year-on-year.

Now, let’s understand the table

HDFC holds 22% of the cards but 29.5% of the spending. SBI Card holds 18.57% of the cards but 20.4% of the spending. Spends on ICICI and Axis are both lower than their card count.

This tells you which banks have customers who actually spend money through the card. Spend per card is the number that makes this concrete.

You can see that HDFC's cardholders spend roughly 34% more per card than the market average. Thus, HDFC keeps investing in premium cards like Infinia and Diners Black.

But in the case of Axis, its spend sits about 17% below average, which is exactly the pressure that led to the recent devaluations.

That’s the real reason you should care about issuer economics.

A bank whose spend per card is falling will eventually cut your rewards to fix its margins. We saw it happen at Axis. We saw it happen again with the SBI Cashback card devaluation in April 2026.

SBI Card is the story of 2026

SBI Card grew spending 34.4% year-on-year while the industry grew 9.8%. That’s more than three times the market rate, and it came alongside a 12% rise in average spend per card at a time when the industry average was falling.

Industry-wide, transaction volumes rose 25.8% year-on-year to 587 million. But the average transaction value dropped about 15% to ₹3,445.

People are using credit cards more often for smaller things, mostly because of RuPay cards linked to UPI. The swipes are getting more frequent and much smaller.

Public sector banks are driving most of the growth, and RuPay is why. Saurabh Bhalerao, director at CareEdge Ratings, points out that large private banks grew spends around 6% year-on-year while private banks fell 4%. It suggests the industry growth is being carried by public sector issuers with stronger RuPay franchises.

Why the Biggest Issuer Is Rarely the Right Issuer for You

Take two people with the same ₹50,000 monthly spend and the same HDFC card. One earns ₹18,000 a year in rewards. The second one earns ₹4,200 over the same year. Same bank, same market share, same 22%.

The difference is which HDFC card they hold and whether their lifestyle matches it. Market share had nothing to do with either outcome.

The RBI data makes this point better than any argument could. Sort the issuers by spend per card instead of by size and the order collapses completely:

spending isTwo of the five most valuable card bases in India belong to issuers ranked 35th and 39th by size. Amex has 4.9% of HDFC's card count and more than double its spend per card.

So, the card you pick matters the most. HDFC alone sells more than 20 active cards with effective returns from under 1% to over 3.3%. Picking the wrong one inside the right bank costs you far more than exploring a smaller bank.

Your own spending pattern comes second. A card that pays 5% on online shopping is worth nothing if you spend mostly on fuel and groceries. Check our merchant category code list if you want to know how your spending is actually classified.

The fee and its waiver condition come third. A ₹2,500 fee waived at ₹3 lakh annual spend is free if you spend ₹30,000 a month and expensive if you spend ₹15,000.

Our annual fee waiver guide can be a handy guide for you.

Devaluation risk comes fourth, and this is the one place where the issuer matters. Banks under margin pressure cut rewards. We tracked the wave of Indian credit card devaluations through 2026, and the pattern is consistent. The banks with falling spend per card cut first.

Service quality also matters, and it’s the most oversold factor of all. Every large issuer in India has thousands of angry customers and thousands of happy ones. Pick on maths, not on anecdotes.

All Credit Card Issuers in India: The Complete RBI List

RBI has 40 banks that reported credit cards in force for June 2026. Another 23 scheduled banks report zero, including Central Bank of India, UCO Bank and Bank of Maharashtra.

Here is every issuer, ranked by cards in force.

A few things worth noticing in that table

Citibank still has 2.80 lakh cards. Axis Bank acquired Citi's India consumer business in March 2023 and migrated the cards, yet a residual portfolio is still reporting separately. Those cardholders spend ₹20,468 a month, the fifth highest in the country.

SBM Bank India has 8.28 lakh cards and almost no spending on them. At ₹638 per card per month, it’s the lowest of any issuer by a wide margin. SBM is the license behind several fintech card programmes, yet most of those cards are sitting unused.

The RBI's release covers scheduled commercial banks only. Co-operative banks and regional rural banks issue credit cards too, and none of them appear in the 121.59 million national total.

• Saraswat Co-operative Bank runs its own RuPay Platinum credit card. Its joining fee is nil, the annual fee of ₹500 is waived on ₹10,000 of yearly spend, and the card carries a 3% forex markup. Several other urban co-operative banks issue RuPay credit cards on the same pattern.
• Tripura Gramin Bank became the first regional rural bank in India to issue a credit card. It launched a co-branded RuPay card with Punjab National Bank on 3 February 2026. Given the "one state, one RRB" consolidation now under way, more RRB cards are likely to follow through 2026 and 2027.

These banks aren’t large enough to move the national numbers. Still, they matter if you bank with these institutions. Because a pre-approved card from your own bank is often the easiest approval.

Fintech card brands (and the banks behind them)

You may be wondering why some popular companies don’t appear in the RBI’s list. It’s because they aren’t the card issuers. They issue their cards in collaboration with one of the banks.

Here are a few worth mentioning:

The issuing bank is the one that owns your credit line, sets the terms, and answers to the RBI.

When something goes wrong with one of these cards, that bank is who you escalate to and who the RBI ombudsman will hold responsible. The app isn’t the issuer.

Who's Actually Growing in 2026

If you want to know where the Indian credit card market is heading, look at who is adding cards.

IDFC FIRST has overtaken Kotak to become India's fifth largest issuer

IDFC FIRST Bank holds 48.09 lakh cards against Kotak Mahindra Bank's 47.83 lakh. In November 2025, IDFC FIRST was at roughly 42 lakh and Kotak at 45 lakh. IDFC FIRST added 87,227 cards in May 2026 alone.

But then, IDFC FIRST's cardholders spend ₹9,610 a month against Kotak's ₹13,088. It seems they grew through lifetime-free cards aimed at customers new to credit, who didn’t spend much.

Federal Bank is the fastest-growing issuer in the country

Federal Bank holds 25.34 lakh cards as of June 2026, up from roughly 18 lakh in November 2025. That’s about 40% growth in seven months. It issued 11.7 lakh cards over the past year, out-issuing both Axis Bank and ICICI Bank.

Then in April 2026, it did something bigger. Federal Bank's board acquired around 4.5 lakh credit cards from Standard Chartered Bank India. Through this deal, Federal Bank expects receivables in its non-co-branded card business to rise about 90%, and roughly 75% of the acquired base sits in India's top eight cities.

If you hold a Standard Chartered card, this affects you directly. Federal Bank will need to move you onto an equivalent card in its own range, and its range is different. Cardholders on TechnoFino have been tracking the migration since it started, and the main discussion has people reporting confusion over which customers get moved and onto what.

The middle of the market is where the fight is

In May 2026, the top four issuers took only 63.7% of incremental spending while controlling about 76% of total spending. Mid-sized banks partnering with fintechs are taking the difference.

But then, not everyone in the middle is winning. IndusInd Bank has slipped to 29.82 lakh cards from roughly 31 lakh in November 2025, and YES Bank has surpassed it. DBS Bank India is down to 3.10 lakh from about 3.9 lakh.

American Express has eased to 13.01 lakh from 13.4 lakh, though it remains the most valuable card base in the country by some distance.

The good thing is that this competition in the middle may turn out to be beneficial for you. After all, banks fighting for new customers offer better terms than banks defending old ones.

How to Choose a Credit Card Issuer

Start by admitting what the issuer decision is actually for. You aren’t picking a bank. You are picking a card, and the bank is a constraint on which cards you can pick.

If you already bank somewhere, start there. Pre-approved offers from your own bank usually mean no income documentation, a faster approval, and a better chance of getting the card you actually applied for. This matters most if you are applying for your first credit card, where approval is the hard part.

Match the issuer to where your money goes. If most of your spending is on Amazon and Flipkart, ICICI and Axis have the co-brands. If it’s Swiggy and Zomato, HDFC does. If you travel four or more times a year, look at Axis, HDFC and the lounge access rules by issuer, because lounge terms differ more between banks than reward rates do.

Check the fee waiver threshold against your real annual spend. Take your last three months of card statements, average them, and multiply by twelve. If that number sits below the waiver threshold, the card costs you its full fee every year.

If you would rather not do this maths at all, a lifetime free card removes the question entirely.

Read the caps before the headline rate. A card advertising 5% cashback with a ₹500 monthly cap pays you ₹6,000 a year no matter how much you spend. So, effective return on, say ₹50,000 of monthly spend, is exactly 1%. The headline said 5%.

Assume your rewards will be cut at some point. Every major Indian issuer has devalued a flagship card in the last three years. So, don’t build your financial life around a reward rate. Pick a card that still makes sense if the rate drops by a third.

Do not hold more cards than you can track. Each card is a due date, a fee cycle and a credit line. Missing one payment costs more in interest and credit score damage than a year of rewards earns you.

📺 Ankur Warikoo on multiple credit cards, worth 10 minutes of your time.

What Is Cards in Force, and Why Does It Differ From Active Cards?

Cards in force is the RBI's term for every credit card a bank has issued that hasn’t been closed or written off. It includes even those cards that nobody has swiped in eighteen months.

Active cards is a different measure, and banks define it differently from each other. Some count any card used in the last 30 days, some use 90 days, some use a full year. When a comparison site says a bank has "X active cards," it’s usually quoting the cards-in-force number anyway.

The gap between the two is why spend per card is worth calculating. SBM Bank India is the clearest example, carrying 8.28 lakh cards that generate ₹638 of spending each per month. That’s just dormant plastic, and dormant plastic is expensive for a bank to service.

One more thing worth keeping straight. Market share by cards tells you about distribution reach. Share by spending tells you about customer quality. HDFC happens to lead on both. ICICI and Axis lead on neither relative to their card counts.

FAQs about Credit Card Issuers in India

Which bank issues the most credit cards in India?

HDFC Bank issues the most credit cards in India, with 26.75 million cards in force as of June 2026, giving it a 22% market share. It’s followed by SBI Card at 22.58 million, ICICI Bank at 19.52 million, and Axis Bank at 16.19 million. HDFC also leads on spending, accounting for around 0.59 trillion of the industry's ₹2.01 trillion monthly total.

How many credit card issuers are there in India?

Exactly 40 scheduled commercial banks reported credit cards in force to the RBI for June 2026. That breaks down as 19 private sector banks, 8 public sector banks, 7 small finance banks and 6 foreign banks. Another 23 scheduled banks report zero credit cards. Some co-operative banks and regional rural banks also issue credit cards.

Most Fintech brands aren’t considered issuers as they operate on a partner bank's license and their cards are counted under that bank.

How many credit cards are there in India?

India had 121.59 million credit cards in force as of June 2026, according to the RBI. The base grew 9.36% year-on-year, with banks adding roughly 11.4 lakh net new cards during June. That was the highest monthly net addition since December 2023.

Which credit card issuer is growing fastest in India?

Federal Bank is the fastest-growing credit card issuer in India. It holds 25.34 lakh cards as of June 2026, up about 40% from roughly 18 lakh in November 2025, and it issued 11.7 lakh cards over the past year, overtaking both Axis Bank and ICICI Bank on new issuance. IDFC FIRST Bank is the other fast riser, having passed Kotak Mahindra Bank to become India's fifth largest issuer.

Is the biggest credit card issuer the best one to apply to?

Not usually. Market share measures how many customers a bank signed up, not what those customers get. What decides your return is which specific card you hold, and whether it matches your spending pattern. You should also check the fee waiver threshold against your actual annual spend and the monthly caps on rewards.

Which issuer is least likely to devalue my rewards?

No issuer is safe, and any site telling you otherwise is wild guessing. What you can do is read the warning sign. Issuers whose spend per card sits below the industry average are under margin pressure and cut rewards first.

As of June 2026, Axis Bank is at ₹13,696 per card against an industry average of ₹16,561, and ICICI Bank's spending fell 5.2% year-on-year. HDFC at ₹22,220 and SBI Card at ₹18,191 are both above average and growing.

Which bank is best for credit cards in India?

For most people, the answer is HDFC Bank. It sells more than 20 active cards spanning effective returns from under 1% to more than 3.3%, so the odds that one of them fits how you actually spend are better than anywhere else.

However, for a first card, your existing bank will have the easiest approval. For heavy spenders who travel often, American Express earns its place at the premium end. And for anyone who wants a lifetime-free card, IDFC FIRST has built its entire proposition there.

Disclaimer

This is our honest read of publicly reported data, not formal financial advice. Before you apply for any card, read the bank's own terms, because they change more often than anyone would like. If a number here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.