India's second largest public sector lender, Punjab National Bank (PNB) has launched a global credit card. The international credit card of the bank has been launched in collaboration with VISA.

The card was launched on Friday, February 6th by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. PNB mentions that this card would be acceptable in more than 29 million merchant establishments and 1 million ATMs across the world. Moreover it will also be accepted at a host of online shopping sites.

Dr. Ahluwalia said that the PNB card will widen the customer service network. It comes with a range of features like free credit period of up to 50 days, no annual fee and attractive reward points. It is a fully loaded photo credit card that will also enable the facility of SMS alerts to all its customers in case of e-commerce and high value transactions.

PNB Chairman K C Chakrabarty informed that, "To start with we are launching two varieties of credit cards - Global Gold and Global Classic, which will meet the needs of its customers and will cater to the requirement of different income groups."

He said that earlier in November, the bank had done a soft launch but with the commercial launch this card will be available across 1,200 PNB branches across the country.

The finance charges and cash advance charges attached to the card are one of the most competitive in the industry.

Besides, the bank had also announced completion of 100 percent core banking implementation at all its branches and extension counters. This will be done through the Finacle universal banking solution from Infosys Technologies.

PNB had declared 2008-09 as a financial inclusion year and therefore has taken moves to expand its product portfolio in order to further add to the customer convenience.