The country’s largest private sector lender, HDFC Bank on 8 September said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, numbers of customers prefer to buy high-value products through instalments which stood at an ‘all-time high’. Angshuman Chatterjee, Head (consumer credit cards and digital acquisitions) at HDFC Bank said, concerns are raised about the asset quality given that the high number of job losses and salary cuts, but the bank is ‘bullish’ on the credit card Equated Monthly Installment (EMI) products.

According to think-tanks, job losses in the organised segment are higher and which is traditionally favourite for the banks as the bank ties up with manufacturers and merchants for helping customers to get a cheaper deal with the ability of repayment over some time. There are some reports in which the demands have been severely hit in the economy, which is driven by the consumption of goods in the past few years.

Chatterjee, in a video message for bank employees, said, “Credit card EMIs are at an all-time high. So, customers are choosing to do larger spend by breaking them up into simple EMIs. That is helping the consumption” and added that the trend is visible across all the segments of cardholders.

He said that over 70 per cent of the bank’s customers are using e-commerce right now, which was 47 per cent earlier, showing a shift to online shopping during the pandemic. Once the restrictions are lifted either by the arrival of a vaccine or through something, there will be a huge surge in consumption, Chatterjee added.