BoB eyes 1 mn prepaid cards in 5 years, seeks external help

Bank of Baroda (BoB), India’s second-largest public sector lender, aims to double its base of prepaid cards over the next five years, according to a document reviewed by Mint.

- Shayan Ghosh [e-mail]

The project includes issuing rupee prepaid cards, foreign currency prepaid cards and national common mobility cards.

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The lender, which had 454,608 prepaid cards as of November, plans to add 100,000 prepaid cards—both domestic and foreign—every year, said the document inviting external agencies to submit their bids.

The state-run lender also had an active card rate of 25%, or 112,801 cards, higher than the banking industry average of 18%, as of November, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). An active card is one that has been used for at least one financial transaction in the past year.

The bank also has 1.1 million wallets, including 994,062 active ones.