Number of debit cards fall by 15% to hit two-year low in 2019: RBI data

Banks have stopped issuing suo moto cards for dormant accounts and moved to chip-based cards, weeding out many accounts

Reserve Bank of India data suggests that debit card numbers have plunged by 15 per cent in 2019 hitting a two-year low. The number of debit card has slipped from 998 million in 2018 to 843 million in 2019.  

Bankers believe this could be due to the RBI directive on EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) migration of debit cards from magnetic strip to chip-based cards. Some 155 million cards went out of the market because of this. In 2018 banks reissued cards as per the new directive and cards of inactive accounts were weeded out. Many banks have also enabled