Response: Card issuers are prohibited from issuing unsolicited credit cards and are required to seek prior and explicit consent from the customer before issuing a card. However, if the customer receives an unsolicited card, he/she should refrain from activating or providing consent for activation of card through OTP or any other means. If no consent is received for activating the card, the card-issuer is required to close the credit card account without any cost to the customer within seven working days from the date of seeking confirmation from the customer and shall also intimate the customer that the credit card account has been closed. Subsequent to receiving the intimation from the card-issuer that the card account has been closed, the customer shall destroy the card. Further, the customer may file a complaint with the card-issuer against the issuance of unsolicited card and escalate it to the RBI Ombudsman as per Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (please refer to the response of query 17 below).

Response: Yes, paragraphs 7(b) and 7(c) of the MD have enabled issuance of various types of credit cards which can be customized to access the limits available in different loan accounts, duly aligned to the terms and conditions stipulated for the concerned loan account. For example, a customer availing an overdraft facility from a bank can be issued a type of credit card to access the funds available under the facility. The terms of usage of this credit card (interest charged, repayment schedule, penalty, cash withdrawal limit etc.,) shall correspond to the terms and conditions applicable to the overdraft facility.

Further, para 7(c) provides adequate flexibility to the card-issuers to design Business Credit Cards as envisaged in their Credit Card policy. However, it may be noted that banks cannot issue debit cards to cash credit/loan accounts

Response: Customer-initiated process indicating intent to use a credit card such as PIN generation, modification of transaction control, Interactive Voice Response, recorded call to the customer care centre and SMS may be considered as activation. However, if the card is not activated by the cardholder for more than 30 days from the date of issuance, card-issuers shall seek One Time Password (OTP) based consent in line with para 6(a)(vi) of the MD.

Response: In addition to financial transactions, any process initiated by the cardholder such as generation of statement, change of PIN, change in transaction controls, etc., shall be considered for treating a card as ‘used’. However, any calls made to the customer care centre, for reasons other than those cited above, shall not be considered towards usage of a card.

Response: For business credit cards, wherein the cards have been issued based on the application by a corporate or business entity, card-issuers shall seek explicit consent as required under paragraph 6(a)(vi)/send intimation as required under paragraph 8(b) respectively from/to the principal account holder (viz. corporate or business entity) unless specified otherwise in the agreement. Similarly, with regard to retail credit cards too, it is clarified that the requisite consent shall be sought from the principal cardholder and not from the add-on cardholders.

However, for blocking of such credit cards, either the actual cardholder or the principal cardholder can initiate the request.

Response: In case a cardholder does not clear the total amount due within the payment due date, interest free credit period will be lost, and interest may be levied from the date of transaction on the outstanding amount (adjusted for payments/refunds/reversed transactions as and when credited) and not on the total amount due. Further, late payment fee and other charges relating to delay in payment shall be levied only on the outstanding amount (adjusted for payments/refunds/reversed transactions as and when credited) after the payment due date and not on the total amount due.

Response: No, card-issuers shall not capitalize i.e., levy interest or any other charges, on the unpaid taxes/levies/charges. As the provision contained under para 9(b)(ii) of the MD became effective from October 01, 2022, card-issuers shall not capitalize unpaid taxes/levies/charges that have been billed from October 01, 2022.

Response: For a typical credit card with billing cycle from October 1, 2023 to October 30, 2023, let’s assume the bill is generated on October 30, 2023 and the due date of payment is November 19, 2023. The different scenarios for adjustment of credit are detailed below:

Note: The card-issuers may put in place a suitable mechanism to prevent evergreening of the credit facility.

Response: The cardholder shall be provided option to choose any date as the starting or closing day of the billing cycle at least once. Further, card-issuers may provide the option to modify the billing cycle through multiple channels such as helpline, dedicated e-mail-id, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), internet banking, mobile-application and any other modes.

Response: Usage of a credit card beyond the sanctioned credit limit (i.e., overlimit) requires prior explicit consent of the cardholder, as a fraud minimisation mechanism. Further, a cardholder shall be given an option to enable or disable the option of overlimit through transaction control mechanism available on card-issuer’s platforms such as internet, mobile banking, or any other suitable medium. Unless explicit consent has been obtained from the cardholder for the overlimit facility, no overlimit can either be provided or overlimit charges be levied.