In a luxury-focussed card market, BOBCARD bets on health and insurance

With rising medical costs and changing customer preferences reshaping how credit cards are used, the Bank of Baroda subsidiary is moving away from one-size-fits-all offerings towards cohort-specific products.

Gen Z users, women, professionals and uniformed personnel are among the key segments it is targeting through specialized cards offering healthcare, insurance and customized benefits.

The latest example of this strategy is the recently launched women-centric Tiara credit card. The card offers a free annual pap smear test and mammography, along with lifestyle-related benefits worth up to ₹31,000.

“The next big thing is health because healthcare has become very expensive," said Ravindra Rai M, managing director and chief executive officer of BOBCARD, adding that the issuer plans to expand its partnerships across insurance, healthcare and wellness.

“In a credit card, either you give a reward or some of the usual perks. But for this specific women-centric card, we thought it should be more towards health benefits. We wanted to bring in something very inclusive," Rai told Mint.

BOBCARD has also introduced insurance-linked covers for army and police personnel, where an insurance cover ranging from ₹20 lakh to up to ₹1 crore, is activated upon using the card. For these profession-linked or cohort-specific cards, the issuer also offers add-on cards for family members, reward points and lounge access.

“Healthcare itself is a big subject, but these are areas we have touched which are behaving perfectly for us," he said, adding that this includes tie-ups for empanelling with hospitals for diagnostics and free testing.

Target customer cohorts

While premium and super-premium cards remain a focus for driving higher spends, BOBCARD’s broader approach is cohort-driven. This includes a card designed for chartered accountants and an instant cashback product called Boomerang, aimed at digitally savvy Gen Z users.

“They are the future for us, they are the ones who are really going to push (credit cards) because they're looking at travel, lifestyle, etc.," Rai said.

As revolver rates declined for the industry and repayment behaviour improved, a lot of these lifestyle purchases are today being funded by EMIs (equated monthly instalments) against card spends as they offer a 50-day interest-free cycle for users, he added. Currently, 8-10% of the issuer's credit card dues are seeing conversions to EMI payments.

The idea here is to personalize and customize rewards and benefits for the varied customer segments, Rai said.

Young customers prefer lifestyle benefits such as concert tickets or getaways over luxury benefits such as golf club memberships for older premium customers. “Issuers need to relook at their strategies when they position themselves to these cohorts of people because ‘one-size-fits-all’ has gone out of the window."

Partnerships to scale

Formerly Bob Financial, BOBCARD was rebranded in January 2024 to identify it as a credit card issuing company and introduce the tagline ‘reimagining credit’.

Part of the rebranding exercise included shedding the “sluggish" perception usually attached to a PSU-promoted entity, and the introduction of innovative and segment or need-specific products through partnerships and tie-ups, especially those with fintechs.

BOBCARD has partnered with fintechs such as OneCard, Uni and Scapia.

“There is an intent to grow the right way and the new age issuers and fintechs have the flexibility and speed. When you mix both, it works out well."

In the premium segment, partnerships are more lifestyle-led. The recent co-branded card with Etihad Airways marks the issuer’s first airline tie-up and a move towards international travel benefits. “We want to bring in a little bit of lifestyle benefits. We are trying to be there with the big boys." Rai said.

Growth and scale

BOBCARD is one of only two standalone credit card issuers in India, alongside SBI Card, with both promoted by state-owned banks. This structure has pushed the company to pursue growth aggressively, while maintaining a close watch on margins.

To manage this, the company is investing in technology to strengthen underwriting, simplify onboarding, improve grievance redressal and support EMI-led purchases.

“We are one of the top 10 issuers in this country. And a long-term plan is that we want to be in the top five," Rai said, adding that the aim is to scale the business over the next two to three years to achieve this goal by 2027-2028.

To support this growth, the company raised ₹350 crore in 2024 and plans to seek more capital from the promoter in the next few years.

In an October 2025 report titled ‘Indian Payments Handbook 2025-2028’, PwC said private banks lead the credit card issuance in India, with eight of the top ten issuers being private banks. Further, the top four banks account for around 71% of all credit cards outstanding, 77% of transaction volumes and about 75% of transaction value.

Scale and performance

According to the latest Reserve Bank of India data, the issuer had 3 million cards-in-force as of November 2025, up 4.2% on year, placing it ninth among credit card issuers by outstanding cards. In terms of monthly spends, BOBCARD ranked 11th, with the value of card transactions—across point-of-sale and e-commerce—rising 17.6% year-on-year to ₹3,338 crore.

In comparison, SBI Card held the second spot in volume terms with 2.2 crore cards-in-force as of November 2025, recording the third-highest spend of ₹33,936 crore for the month.

HDFC Bank held the top spot, both in terms of the number of the cards and spends with 25.6 million cards-in-force contributing to spends of around ₹55,552 crore in November.

At an industry level, the total number of outstanding cards was at 114.9 million, accounting for monthly spends of ₹1.9 trillion, per RBI data.

BOBCARD reported a net profit of ₹23.22 crore for the first half of the current financial year, down 9.1% from the year-ago period. Average net receivables rose 17% year-on-year to ₹6,257 crore for the six-month period. Following Bank of Baroda’s Q2 FY26 results, YES Securities estimated BOBCARD’s market capitalisation or assigned value at ₹2,889 crore based on its book value.