IRCTC partners with HDFC Bank to launch co-branded travel credit card

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) and HDFC Bank on Wednesday announced a partnership to launch a co-branded travel credit card.

Known as the IRCTC HDFC Bank Credit Card, the co-branded card is in a single variant and is available on NPCI's Rupay network.

This is the third tie-up of IRCTC after State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.

The card will provide exclusive benefits and maximum savings on bookings of train tickets booked through the IRCTC's ticketing website and through IRCTC Rail Connect app, HDFC Bank Group Head (Payments, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking and IT) Parag Rao told reporters here.

Additionally, he said, IRCTC HDFC Bank Credit cardholders will enjoy an attractive joining bonus, discounts on bookings and access to the several executive lounges at railway stations across the country.

Commenting on the association, IRCTC chairman and managing director Rajni Hasija said the co-branded card offers exclusive access to newly opened lounges available at most of the major railway stations.

The credit card will help to streamline online transactions and at the same time offer benefits as well as experience to customers, she added.

Meanwhile, HDFC Bank's internet banking site and mobile app faced an outage on Tuesday leaving customers clueless for a few hours. This happened on a day when most customers were supposed to receive their salaries.

Taking to Twitter, many users said they were unable to carry out any transactions for over two hours, while others complained of being logged out of the app repeatedly.

In December 2020, the RBI had barred HDFC Bank from issuing new cards and introducing new digital initiatives after repeated instances of technological outages at the lender, which is the market leader in the credit cards segment.

The RBI action came after the bank's customers faced a number of incidents of outages in Internet banking, mobile banking, and payment utilities over the past two years. Rivals ICICI Bank and SBI Cards seized the opportunity to narrow the gap with HDFC Bank.

The action against HDFC Bank was followed by a ban on new card issuances by Mastercard and American Express due to their failure to adhere to data localisation rules.