According to the latest RBI bulletin, debit card payments have increased 38 percent in the first six months of the current fiscal debit card payments during first half of the current financial year amounted to Rs. 8,531 crore.

An economist with a leading bank attributed this increase to the spurt in consumer activities.

Simultaneously, credit card payments have declined by 12 percent during the same period to Rs. 29,330 crore as people have decided against using credit cards amidst the ongoing financial crisis. Credit card payments in the comparable period previous year stood at Rs 33,470 crore.

During September alone, Credit card payments went down from Rs. 5,635 crore to Rs. 4,902 crore.

The credit card payments have been on the same downward path since November last year despite an increase in retail loan disbursal. Experts feel that this might be due to banks' reducing credit limits of customers.

Credit card firms have become wary of credit card defaults. The credit card companies that earlier fought for higher market shares in terms of number of cards disbursed and offered free credit cards are now concentrating on fee-based cards.