Card Protection Services India

India has been one of the world’s fastest growing economies with banking & financial services companies experiencing significant growth both in size & profitability. The number of credit cards in India has declined over few years and that of debit cards has grown. As of end March 2012, there were 17.65 million credit cards and 268 million debit cards in Indian market.

With these changes in card market size, there has been lot of pitfalls as incidents of fraud, card lost, and card stolen. Currently, the total industry lost, stolen & counterfeit card fraud is Rs. 13 crore.

From Sushmita Sen, Shriya Sharan to aam aadmi, there have been all sorts of victims. Everyday lot of people loses their wallet, debit card, credit card, pan card, loyalty cards, mobile, driving license etc. These cards could go in wrong hands and leave the owner distressed.

There has been lot of companies in developed economies which provide card protection services to people. All card protection companies help consumers block their cards by giving free call to customer service team.

 In India, banks started providing these services to consumers since end of 2008 using CPP Assistance Services,India.CPP has 30 years of experience in assistance services and is headquartered in United Kingdom.

Recently, Sequoia Capital India & Lightspeed Venture invested $3.5 M into Mumbai based OneAssist Consumer Solutions Pvt. Ltd. This company offers personalized mobile & financial security services via its various products Wallet Assist, Mobile Assist, Everyday assist and Trip Assist.

This market seems to be still in its early stage in India and mostly consumers from upper middle class & above will avail these services.

Success of these companies in Indian market will depend on how well they price their product, how many features they offer in their product, how well they educate consumers about these products, how easy they make purchase of their products and how well they service their customers. Moreover, it will also depend on the growth of plastic in the wallets of consumers.

CPP already have tied-up with most of the banks such as ICICI, HSBC, Citi Bank, SBI, Axis Bank etc. for various card protection memberships (Classic, Premium, and Platinum). Rates at which these banks & CPP provide these services:

	CPP	HSBC	ICICI	Citi Bank	SBI	Axis
Classic
Single	1145	1287		1287	1145	1145
Joint	1745	1961		1961	1745	1745
Premium
Single	1495	1680	1495	1680	1495	1495
Joint	2245	2522	2245	2522	2245	2245
Platinum
Single	1745	1961		1961	1745	1745
Joint	2645	2972		2972	2645	2645

One Assist not only provides card protection service, but also others too as mentioned below:

Wallet Assist Power

Wallet Assist Privilege

Mobile Assist Power

Mobile Assist Privilege

Everyday Assist Power

Trip Assist Power

Single

Joint

Single

Joint

Single

Joint

Single

Joint

Single

Joint

Single

Joint

One Assist

1099

1699

1599

2499

1099

N/A

1499

2499

2199

3299

599

899

It will be interesting to watch how these companies perform in Indian market.