Customers in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have increased credit card spending on online subscriptions for entertainment to education during the nationwide lockdown, according to credit card payment Cred.
“The only category where credit card holders maintained their spends in April too, and actually increased it, was digital subscription services,” Cred said in a report based on the aggregate card spending of users that consented to analysis of their statements.
Spending on subscriptions through credit card rose 18% in Delhi, 11% percent in Bangalore and 8% percent in Mumbai between March and April, Cred said. This was despite a drop in spending on entertainment subscriptions in March.
Overall, card spending by Cred users in the three cities fell as much as 51% percent from March to April. “The period of anxiety before the lockdown and stress during the lockdown were a time of abrupt shifts in how Indians spent their money.”
In March, all three cities saw increased spending by Cred users on grocery, utilities, medical and fuel as consumers stocked up ahead of the shutdown. From March to April, spending in the same categories plunged.
Cred said the data can be useful as a proxy for an individual's priorities. It suggests that users are “not only putting their money down, but also doing it with reasonable confidence of ability to repay”. But the report does not provide any absolute figures or the number of users whose data was analysed to reach the conclusions.
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