Credit card spending has hit a record high of Rs 1.4 lakh crore (trillion) in May, the latest data from the Reserve Bank of India showed.

The total spending or outstanding dues on credit cards, which remained range-bound throughout the year in the previous fiscal, have been rising 5 per cent month on month this year.

Similarly, the number of cards in use has also jumped more than 5 million since January and crossed 87.4 million in the reporting month, making this also an all-time high in May, according to the RBI data.

Of the new additions, as much as 2 million were used in the first two months of the current fiscal alone.

In January 2023 there were 82.4 million active cards in the country. The number has been growing steadily and reached 83.3 million in February, 85.3 million in March, and 86.5 million in April, the data showed.

Credit card spends were in the range of Rs 1.1-1.2 lakh crore throughout FY23, but reached an all-time high of Rs 1.4 lakh crore in May this year, according to the RBI data, which also showed that the average spend on a card scaled a new peak of Rs 16,144.

Market leader HDFC Bank has the maximum number of cards in circulation at 18.12 million in May and the bank also leads the market in terms of outstanding dues with 28.5 per cent of the total industry-wide dues.

SBI Card is a close second with 17.13 million cards, followed by ICICI Bank at 14.67 million. Axis Bank is the fourth largest with 12.46 million and its recent takeover of the retail portfolio of Citi has helped it close the gap with ICICI Bank. Citi had 1,62,150 active card users when it sold to the portfolio along with retail banking to Axis in 2022.

Meanwhile, indicating the rising stress level among individuals, a Transunion Cibil report last week said delinquencies in the credit card portfolio of banks have been rising and have jumped by 66 basis points to 2.94 per cent in March 2023.