Credit card transactions hit record high in Oct

A file photo shows a salesperson swiping credit card of a customer through a POS machine in the capital, Dhaka. Credit card-based transactions reached a record high of Tk 1,964.3 crore in October amid a growing dependency of a section of people on such cards amid Covid-induced economic shocks.— New Age photo

Credit card-based transactions reached a record high of Tk 1,964.3 crore in October amid a growing dependency of a section of people on such cards amid Covid-induced economic shocks.

Not only the use of credit cards but also the number of cards issued has seen a whopping growth since the Covid outbreak in the country.

Besides the pandemic-induced economic shocks, people’s adoption to digital payments has improved to a great extent since the Covid outbreak.

A Bangladesh Bank data showed that the transactions through credit cards rose to Tk 1,964.3 crore in October 2021, highest after Tk 1,934.9 crore in transactions in June 2021.

The transactions in October were 41.21 per cent or Tk 583.1 crore higher than the Tk 1,381.2 crore in transactions in the same month in 2020.

In January-October of the current year, transactions through credit cards increased by 51 per cent or Tk 5,763 crore year-on-year.

In the first 10 months of 2021, credit card transactions reached Tk 17,014.8 crore from Tk 11,250.9 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Apart from the significant surge in transactions, the number of cards issued grew by 36.08 per cent or 8.49 lakh from October 2020 to October 2021.

The number of cards increased to 32.04 lakh in October 2021 from 23.54 lakh in the same month of the previous year.

Bankers said that the growth in e-commerce business was the main reason for the significant growth in credit card-based transactions.

The country’s e-commerce businesses observed a major grown after the outbreak of coronavirus.

In October 2021, the e-commerce transactions surged to Tk 743 crore, 3.52 times higher than the Tk 211 crore in transactions in October 2019.

Apart from the credit cards, the number of debit and prepaid cards reached 2.57 crore and 4.54 lakh respectively in October.

In the month, transactions through debit cards reached Tk 23,126.3 crore, up 39.91 per cent or Tk 6,597.1 crore on Tk 16,529.2 crore in the same month of the past year.

Transactions through prepaid cards reached Tk 201.2 crore in October 2021 from Tk 179.4 crore in the same month of the past year.