 "HDFC Bank")
Apple’s partnership with HDFC Bank in India involved instant cashbacks and EMI facilities for the purchase of Apple products through HDFC Bank credit cards | File image
After five years of collaboration with US technology giant Apple, HDFC Bank, country’s largest private sector lender, has taken a “temporary break” from the tie-up, following a review of the partnership from a cost-to-income perspective, a senior official of the bank said.
“We worked with Apple for five years. We built a good brand relationship with Apple. We took a pause because we reviewed the entire nature of the partnership. We monitor cost to income and sometimes the cost-to-income measure does not work out for a particular partnership. We have taken a temporary break,” said Parag Rao, group head – Payments, Consumer Finance, Marketing, Liability Product Group – HDFC Bank.
Apple’s partnership with HDFC Bank in India involved instant cashbacks and EMI facility for purchase of Apple products through HDFC Bank credit cards. Now, the American technology giant is offering instant cashbacks and no cost EMI facility on American Express, Axis Bank, and ICICI Bank cards, according to the company’s website.
“They have taken on some other bank partners, and I think you can judge the quality of the relationship, which we had with Apple from the fact that for five years, we were the only bank and now they have taken on two,” Rao said.
Meanwhile, Rao said that with the festive season approaching, the bank is gearing up for a surge in business, and is anticipating a significant share of incremental deposits on the liabilities side, disbursals on the asset side, and spends on the cards side.
“We are preparing for the typical spike which happens. But we do believe that we will be able to get a good share of incremental deposits on the liabilities side, disbursals on the asset side, and of course spend on the cards side. So, we are preparing a very focused plan and we are talking to our partners,” he said.
Rao also stressed that while the regulator’s concern is justified as far as increasing risk weights for retail unsecured loans to curb any exuberance in the segment, HDFC Bank is not seeing any stress building in their portfolio. Nevertheless, the bank will continue to remain prudent in their underwriting policy.
“We have always been prudent in our underwriting policy. You will never see us suddenly opening up our policy gates. We are market leaders. we don’t need to just get any business. We are very clear about that,” Rao said.
Speaking about HDFC Bank’s revamped PayZapp, Rao said the early results are encouraging as close 14 million customers are there on the app, of which 60 per cent are bank customers and the rest are other bank customers.
“We are seeing good traction, good active rates, and good transactions happening,” he said, adding that National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is working with banks to see that bank’s contribution to UPI transactions on their apps goes up.
“We see the opportunity. HDFC Bank with its handles commands 14 per cent of the UPI ecosystem. That’s a large share on a 400 million customer base,” he added.
Elaborating on the bank’s deposit mobilisation strategy, Rao said the bank is now doubling down on retail granular deposits.
“So, we are expanding branch banking, using a lot of digital tools to garner fixed deposits… we will continue to grow our branch franchise; we are ultimately a large retail bank,” Rao said.
First Published: Sep 01 2024 | 1:32 PM IST
