The current economic slowdown has resulted in a decline of over 12 percent in credit card payments.

As indicated by RBI's data, till August last year, the amount of credit card transactions was Rs 27,834 crore but it started sloping down towards the end of the last financial year. The total amount of the transactions for the entire fiscal was only 65,355 crore.

Analysts are of the opinion that this decline indicates an adverse impact of the financial crisis on India. They say that retail consumers have become more careful in taking credit to make their payments.

Economists cite another reason for this slowdown in credit card usage. They say that some banks have reduced the credit limits that they offer thus hampering people from taking credit.

The amount of debit card transactions in this financial year was Rs 9,911 crore up from Rs. 7017.63 crore the previous fiscal.

The credit card firms are now coming with more fee based cards rather than free cards to put a check on the increasing number of defaults and recover the losses that the industry has faced.

Several premium segment cards were launched this year. While Citibank launched its Platinum Select card in February that charges an annual fee of Rs 4,000, ICICI Bank launched ICICI Bank Singapore Airlines Visa Platinum card in May 2009 which charges an annual fee of Rs 6,000. Industry executives say that these premium segment cards are used all the time.