Showing posts with label credit card news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label credit card news. Show all posts

SBI Card - now the most trusted Credit Card



SBI Card has received the title of the most trusted brand in credit card segment. The title was conferred by Reader's Digest Asia Trusted Brands Survey. SBI Card has been voted as the best since the last three years.

The card mainly focuses on customer directed activities. The 250 service camps laid recently had been a part of this move. The camps helped SBI Card reach 2,10,000 customers across 31 Indian cities.

Which Low interest Credit Card to Apply?

SBI Card in the only credit card in India which facilitates its customers with 13 different modes of payment.

Last year, SBI Card won several Indian and Asian awards including the most trusted brand in credit card category in the Reader's Digest Asia Trusted Brands 2009 Survey, a consumer choice award from CNBC Awaaz and ‘Asia's Best Mature Captive Services Delivery' award from the Shared Services Outsourcing Network (SSON).

Reader's Digest Asia Trusted Brands Survey was came into existence in 1999 and has successfully been carried out so far.

Posted by Info Guru

"Pay with Points" from American Express


American Express, through its Membership Rewards program, has introduced ‘Pay with Points’, a feature that makes booking flights easier and faster than before for its Platinum cardmembers and the Platinum Reserve credit cardmembers. Pay with Points feature allows cardmembers to instantly redeem membership rewards points for all or part of the cost of any leading airline ticket without blackout dates or restriction when booking travel through American Express Membership Travel Services. 

In the past, American Express cardmembers were able to convert rewards points to frequent flyer miles with Membership Rewards partner airlines. Now in addition, with this ‘Pay with Points’ feature, the cardmembers have an option to use their membership reward points to fly on any leading airlines free of blackout dates or restrictions or memberships to Frequent Flyer programmes.


Cardmembers can call American Express Membership Travel Services to book tickets availing of a choice of airlines to fly including leading domestic and over 50 international airlines. Cardmembers can pay for tickets by combining points with part payment on their American Express Platinum Cards as well as pay fully with the points earned. 


Posted by Info Guru

Credit Card Information - Fetches Big Money

While economies went into a tailspin in 2009, credit card information, wrongfully extracted by hackers, commanded a huge premium in the grey market — more than double the price they did a year earlier. 

In some cases, data encrypted on the magnetic strip of credit cards were being sold at six times more. The username and password of sites like PayPal that accountholders can withdraw cash from, were up by $600 per account. 

On the other hand, bank credentials — account numbers, net banking transaction access codes and personal account passwords — appear to have become a little cheaper over the past one year. So are e-mail passwords over the past one year. 

Card Protection Program FAQs

For instance, leading web security firm Symantec says credit card information — along with the card verification value (CVV) — was $30 per card during 2009 against $12 in 2008. CVV is the three-digit number on the opposite side of the card and is a must for making online transactions. 

Data encrypted on the magnetic strip of a credit card, referred to as credit card dumps, contains the primary account number and the expiration date as well as card-holder’s name. Each credit card issuer has its own standards for encoding this information. The highest price for such information was $140 per card in 2009 against $25 per card in the previous year. 

User name and password of sites, including PayPal, referred to as cash-out services, were selling at 50% of the total value of the cash that could be siphoned off from a single account during 2008. During 2009, the prices increased $600 flat. 
Bank account information, however, dropped from $1,000 in 2008 to $850 in 2009. Over the same period, e-mail accounts sold at $20 on the higher side during 2009 against $30 in the previous year. Credit card info and bank accounts still top advertised items in the underground economy. However, credit card dumps saw a marked increase in advertisements.

Popularly called underground economy, there are a set of hackers who deploy various malicious methods to extract sensitive data from unsuspecting PC users. Having extracted a sizeable volume, they advertise on various sites to sell them. The potential of financial gain from these data determines the price for any set of information. 

There is another set of hackers who use such stolen information to extract money,  The ones that steal the information may not always want to use them and, therefore, remain unidentified. Hence, they are satisfied with selling them in the underground economy. The ones that buy them are capable or intend to take more risks than the ones that steal the information... Interestingly, there are two distinct sets of people. 

Prices of credit card information have gone up because credit limits offered were raised over the past one year. Prices of bank account information have declined because it is becoming increasingly difficult to use bank information to siphon off funds. 

Card Protection Program India

Prices are also dependent on factors like average credit limits on cards in specific countries. For example, credit card information in the US will fetch higher prices than those in India or Bangladesh. In contrast, bank account or debit card information from countries like India will fetch more money than in the US since Indians have a propensity to save and, therefore, likely to have more funds in their bank accounts than an average US citizen.

Posted by Info Guru

LIC Credit Card and Credit Card Protection program



LIC credit card holders can now report loss of any of their cards from anywhere in the world to a 24-hour helpline launched by LIC Cards Services. 

LIC Cards Services Ltd has launched Card Protection Plan for its credit card customers in partnership with CPP Assistance Services which will safeguards all of the LIC cardholder's payment cards - credit, debit and ATM cards. 

The members can also be able to register their non-financial cards such as store cards, loyalty and membership cards. 

Credit Card Security

Besides these, customers will be able to retrieve important details on lost/stolen documents like passport, PAN and driving license also 


To avail the new service, customers would need to purchase a membership plan offered by LIC and register their cards with CPP.

Posted by Info Guru

Deutsche Bank Airline/World miles credit card

Deutsche Bank is set to launch a credit card that will allow the users to redeem points — or flight miles — accumulated by booking flight tickets using the card — named WorldMiles credit card — against airline tickets. The WorldMiles credit card is offered in two variants, Platinum and Signature. 

To use the service, card holders need to log on to their accounts — created automatically once the card is issued — on myworldmiles.com and buy tickets from any airline (international, domestic, full service as well as low cost) through the portal. 

In addition to ‘FlightMiles’ accumulated on tickets purchased on the portal, the user also earns ‘SpendMiles’ for booking the tickets through the card. These SpendMiles, too, can be redeemed against flight tickets. Spends made on the card for purposes other than air travel also yield ‘SpendMiles’. On the Signature variant, every Rs 100 spent will fetch you three SpendMiles — two in the case of Platinum. These miles can be collected in addition to the points you would earn as per the airlines’ frequent flyer programmes. 

While such schemes offered by airlines restrict the redemption to their tickets bought from the carrier, this one is airline-agnostic — you can redeem the miles accumulated against tickets of any airline. It also allows you to accumulate miles when you fly low-cost airlines which, barring a few, do not run frequent flyer schemes. You can accumulate the miles if you use the card to book tickets for your family members, friends or associates as well. 

There are certain limitations, though. Since the miles earned can be redeemed only against flight tickets, those looking for a diverse rewards programme may not find this offering appealing. The points earned on an airline’s frequent flyer programme cannot be clubbed with the miles earned via this credit card. That is, assuming a traveller has accumulated 500 points on the airline’s frequent flyer programme and another 500 miles on the WorldMiles credit card — and assuming, hypothetically, that 1000 miles entitle a card holder to one free ticket — the two cannot be clubbed together to buy one ticket. The miles accumulated from the card and the airline’s scheme will have to be redeemed separately. 

While the joining fee for the Platinum variant is Rs 5,000, one will have to shell out Rs 7,500 for the Signature card. In addition, the annual maintenance fees amount to Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,500, respectively. 

The card and the programme are operational on a pilot basis, and the bank is planning a full-fledged launch shortly.
Posted by Info Guru

ABN Amro Credit card cuts credit limit


ABN Amro India has chopped the credit limit of some credit card customers to a tenth and raised the minimum amount payable to 7% of total dues from 5%, possibly to persuade them to surrender their cards as it draws closer to selling its retail operations to UK’s Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp, or HSBC. 


ABN Amro, owned by UK’s troubled Royal Bank of Scotland, or RBS, has also decided to freeze fresh retail lending, including credit card and personal loans, to arrest a pile-up of bad loans. 


ABN Amro continues to do business in India under its original moniker even after RBS took over its Asian operations in 2007. HSBC is said to have signed a deal to buy RBS’ retail businesses in India, China and Malaysia and is awaiting regulatory approvals in the three countries. 

ABN Amro has been up against a large number of employee exits to competitors after the deal with HSBC came to light. It has also laid of some of its employees in the credit card and personal loan departments.
Posted by Info Guru

Dining Movie & play spends card from Kotak credit cards




Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched a credit card which offers 10% cash back on dining and movie and play spends.  This cashback facility is offered throughout the year, the bank said in a statement.
How to lodge Credit Card Complaint
This credit card called Kotak Trump Card extends this cash back facility in all restaurants , fast food joints, pubs, bars and movie theatres, the bank added. The card doesn’t charge any interest to the customer for the first three months. Similarly, any purchase above Rs 5,000 can be converted into EMIs

back to Credit Card News
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Combo Card from Corporation Bank



State-run Corporation Bank is considering launching a multi-utility cash card, which can be used as a debit, credit and pre-paid card, in 
the current year.
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If the initiative fructifies, then Corporation Bank would be the first Indian bank to come out with a one-stop technical solution through a combo card -- a fusion of credit, debit and pre-paid cards.

Though the combo card concept is widely accepted in developed countries, India is yet to witness its benefits by which a person can use a single card as a debit, credit, and pre-paid card.

But there were certain challenges the bank needed to address in terms of infrastructure.

The bank has the infrastructure but the problem is there is no infrastructure at the user-end and they have to create that first. Corporation banks can make the facility available at there ATMs but then there were the ATMs of other banks and Point of Sales. So, this may take some time.

back to Credit Card News
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The Aditya Birla Group-SBI co-branded credit cards

The Aditya Birla Group and SBI Card has announced a partnership to offer co-branded credit cards to all customers of the Aditya Birla Group companies.

The Aditya Birla Group-SBI co-branded credit cards will be available to over 28-million customers of Aditya Birla Group companies--Aditya Birla Retail, Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (which includes Birla Sun Life Insurance and Birla Sun Life Mutual Funds), IDEA and Madura Garments. 

The initiative will be led by the financial services arm of the Aditya Birla Group -- Aditya Birla Financial Services, the release said.

The Aditya Birla Group already has a strong presence in the financial services business, as a significant player in the non-bank space. The card will be made available across more than 2000 retail outlets of Aditya Birla Group companies.
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SBI - Spicejet Cobranded Card


Budget air-carrier, SpiceJet and public sector lender, State Bank of India, today launched their co-branded credit card SBI SpiceJet which offers a host of benefits to the airline's customers.

The offering under the credit card includes an absolutely free SpiceJet air ticket (inclusive of all taxes and surcharge and valid across all sectors and flights), a company press release said here.

A completely free SpiceJet air ticket on enrolment to the SBI SpiceJet Card and completely free SpiceJet air ticket on spends above Rs 1 lakh in a year, are some other benefits that a card-holder can avail, the release said.

The free air ticket is also inclusive of all taxes and surcharge, it said.

Besides, a customer would also be entitled to a Rs 1,000 SpiceJet discount voucher on enrolment to the SBI SpiceJet Card, which is redeemable against a SpiceJet return air ticket, the release aid.

We are pleased to introduce these new benefits for our SBI SpiceJet customers. Bringing new products that offer greater value to our customers has been an ongoing endeavour for us at SBI Card," SBI Card CEO, Diwakar Gupta," said.

This association with SBI card is yet another innovative step towards that and the airline is sure that its customers would find this to be meaningful for them, SpiceJet CEO, Sanjay Aggarwal, said.

Posted by Info Guru
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