SBI Cards m-cap surges to Rs 86,205 crore, nearly half of State Bank of India

SBI Cards and Payments, the only listed credit card company in India, is among top performing stocks that investors picked following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. The fast adoption of digitisation in light of the coronavirus pandemic has lured investors towards the stock, even as its parent company State Bank of India (SBI) received muted response. 

Shares of SBI Cards and Payments hit a new high of Rs 918.60 on the BSE on October 15 after the company started festive season offers in line with the changing shopping trends in wake of coronavirus-pandemic. The stock has rallied 39 per cent to hit record high of Rs 918.60 since its March 16 listing price of Rs 661. The stock has gained 85.48 per cent compared to 52-week low of Rs 495.25 touched on May 22, 2020.

The market capitalisation (m-cap) of SBI Cards surged to Rs 86,205.43 crore, nearly 50 per cent of the market value of SBI, which stood at Rs 1.75 lakh crore. 

On Thursday, SBI Cards shares fell nearly 2.5 per cent intraday to Rs 876.25 after opening flat at Rs 899.15 as investors resorted to profit booking after strong rally in the recent past. 

Also Read: SBI Card launches festive season offers; share price rises 4%

SBI Cards on Tuesday announced that it has kick-started festive season offers in line with the changing shopping trends and customers will be offered discounts as well as cashback across a host of brands. With over 1,000 offers across 2,000 cities, SBI Cards endeavours to bring customers a rewarding shopping experience on their festive season purchases, it said in a release.

The festive offers that started from October 1, will run till November 15, 2020. "This year we have curated over 1,000 offers, with national and local merchants, both in store and online, across 2,000 cities, to enable our cardholders great benefits across all the categories," the company said. 

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"In addition, to make festive purchases more affordable, SBI Card customers can avail EMI purchase facility at over 1.3 lakh stores," said Ashwini Kumar Tewari, MD & CEO, SBI Cards. 

SBI Cards and Payments is set to announce its September quarter earnings report on October 22. For June quarter, the company reported 13.80 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 393.29 crore against Rs 345.59 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Total revenue from operation rose 4 per cent YoY to Rs 2,152.20 crore compared to Rs 2,068.28 crore in the year ago period.

By Chitranjan Kumar