Reportedly around the same time last year, the financial services industry was celebrating that the number of debit cards in circulation in the country had touched 998 million, and was in sight of a billion cards, a record by meanwhile one year down the line the scenario has changed. Furthermore the figure quoted as of october 2019 is 843 million, which represents a 15% shrinking of the debit cards population.
According to a report, this is because banks have been replacing the old magnetic strip-based with the new EMV chip-based cards, as mandated by the Reserve bank of India. Apparently the reason for such a steep fall in the number of cards is the banks used this opportunity to stop issuing cards in respect of those accounts which have remained dormant. If an account is not being operated for very long periods and the debit cards issued earlier from those accounts are now not being replaced.
Moreover another myth being floated around is that the indiscriminate opening of Jan Dhan accounts is the reason for inoperative accounts. But the bankers say this is wrong. Hence they say there has been an increase in the use of debits cards issued under Jan Dhan cards by the poor and in rural segments by an impressive 13% YoY to 374.7 million.
