Icici Bank, Bpl Mobile Tie Up For Co-Branded Credit Card

ICICI Bank and BPL Mobile have today tied-up to launch a co-branded credit card. To be named ICICI Bank-BPL Mobile Credit Card, the card will be operational by the end of August this year.

Currently, ICICI Bank has a customer base of around three lakh, while that of BPL Mobile is at around seven lakh -- with both acquiring 30,000 new customers monthly. Girish Rangan, executive director and chief executive officer of BPL Mobile Communications, said: "Both of us are growing at the same pace and between two of us we are adding around 2,000 new customers a day." Chanda Kochhar, executive director of ICICI Bank said: "The co-branded card will allow both of us to increase our customer base. It will also enable us to create stickiness with our customers, thus ensuring customer retention."

 

The tie-up is likely to be extended to other products of the bank as well. Kochhar added, "We will increase the offering by providing more value-added services in the future. A special discount offer will be given to customers for various loan products ranging from half-a-per cent to one per cent."

The average monthly spend on ICICI credit card is around Rs 1,500 per card, while for BPL Mobile customers it is around Rs 2,000 in Mumbai. The co-branded card also allows an auto-debit feature, whereby the customer can gain a longer credit period for paying the phone bills, once he authorises ICICI Bank to effect a direct debit on the card for payment of phone bills.

However, these advantages of the co-branded credit card will not be made available to prepaid BPL Mobile customers, which forms around 40 per cent of the customer base.

Rangan said, "We have around 56 per cent of the corporate market share in Mumbai and this will offer ICICI Bank an entry. Also in the areas where we are weak, we can tag along with ICICI Bank.". Kochhar added that BPL Mobile can tap the relationship that the bank has with the corporates through its PowerPay Accounts.