Report: India’s Prepaid Card Market to Grow 40 Percent Through 2017 (Aug. 29, 2013)
Aug. 29, 2013
Prepaid cards are booming in India, where the prepaid card market is on track to grow 40 percent over the next four years, according to a new report from the Noida, India-based firm RNCOS Research. In its Indian Prepaid Card Market Outlook to 2017 report released this month, the consulting firm said 97 percent of transactions in India are conducted in cash and 45 percent of consumers still lack a bank account. A major factor in prepaid cards’ growth is government initiatives to begin disbursing funds for aid and scholarships via prepaid cards, along with corporations shifting to prepaid cards to handle payroll and expenses, the study found. Many Indian banks also are using prepaid cards as a marketing lure for first-time customers and a growing number of Indian consumers are adopting prepaid cards for paying remittances, subscriptions and utility bills, and traveling abroad, RNCOS said.
Prepaid card growth has remained strong in India despite a challenging economic environment, Naveen Surya, managing director of Indian prepaid card provider ItzCash Card Ltd., tells Paybefore. “The market is expected to see growth as more consumers prefer using prepaid cards over traditional banking, and the cards have an advantage for budgeting as there is no possibility of exceeding spending limits,” he adds. ItzCash won a Paybefore Award in 2013 for its prepaid NFC-based campus card deployed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in association with National Payments Corporation of India and Canara Bank. That program is “ramping up significantly” this year, according to an ItzCash spokesperson.
