Making its foray into the ever-expanding credit card industry, Kerala-based private sector lender Dhanlaxmi Bank on Monday announced the launch of two credit cards and said it would raise Rs. 200 crore in the last week of this month from bonds to fund its business growth.
“We are planning to raise Rs. 200 crore from Tier-II bonds this month for credit expansion,” Dhanlaxmi Bank Managing Director Amitabh Chaturvedi said after launching the credit cards here. In September 2009, the bank had raised Rs. 150 crore from Tier-II bonds. The unsecured redeemable subordinated non-convertible lower Tier-II bonds have a tenure of 5 years and 7 months.
With the launch of two credit cards the bank has made a foray into retail business, he said. Mr. Chaturvedi said the credit cards were available in Gold and Platinum variants and were targeted at premium customers. The clients would, however, have to pay an annual fee on it. For the first time in India, he said, the bank was introducing a ‘pay by transaction' billing mode for the cards.
Under the programme, instead of monthly billing cycle, the interest-free credit period is considered for individual transaction from the day of purchase. The customer, thus, enjoys a 45-day interest-free credit period on each purchase and does not need to time the purchase based on the billing cycle, Mr. Chaturvedi added.
This feature, he said, also gave the customers the flexibility to decide their own re-payment cycles. At present, Dhanlaxmi Bank, with 270 branches, has a total business of about Rs. 12,000 crore.
