Vijaya Bank general manager (operations and credit cards) Dr K Shankar Shetty said, the bank had targeted 50,000 active credit cards by the end of the fiscal to increase its credit card turnover by Rs 50 crore. During 1998-99, the bank had an active credit card base of 5,000 with the turnover of Rs 100 crore.

Shetty said, in order to attract more customers into its credit card system, the bank currently was in the process of simplifiying the membership procedures, he said. The bank would also adopt some technological improvement to check or curb any sort of fraudulent practices among customers. It also has various plans to improve its security system with respect to credit cards, he added.

Currently, the bank is also working out on some incentives for its cardholders. These schemes would include free renewals for cards which hold a purchase turnover of Rs 30,000 or more, Shetty said.

The bank holds an inactive card base of 20,000 to 23,000 which amounts to about Rs 10 crore. A major chunk of these cards have been used very marginally while over-due cards would account only for a couple of crores he added.