BPL Mobile-ICICI launch co-branded credit card

PUNE: BPL Mobile Cellular Ltd. and ICICI Bank have jointly launched the ICICI

Bank-BPL Mobile credit card in Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and

Kerala circles.

Through the launch of the co-branded credit card, the subscribers of BPL

Mobile and ICICI Bank will get benefits such as easy payment facility offering

the convenience of paying mobile bills without remembering the dates.

The subscriber also gets a revolving credit facility enabling flexibility of

payment in case of a funds crunch. No additional deposit will be required for

the national roaming facility. The subscriber has the option of requesting free

handset insurance for the first year and subsequently at a nominal premium rate

of 0.45 per cent of the mobile phone cost.

V Vaidyanathan, managing director, ICICI Bank saw this as an enhancement of

relationship with customers. He assured that while BPL Mobile may not be present

in its present avatar at a later date, the company would transpose the core

brand into the neutral brand and transactions would remain seamless. The card is

affiliated to VISA and is welcomed at 1.1 lakh establishments in India and 18

million establishments overseas.

ICICI currently has a subscriber base of 4.3 million while BPL Mobile has a

subscriber base of 800,000 cellular users. F B Cardoso, executive director, BPL

Mobile, said that strategic tie ups of this nature borne out of a need to

address key subscriber requirements, creating a win-win platform for the

partners.

Subscribers will have to shell out Rs 600 for the card for the first year.

The deposit of Rs 150 has been waived off for the first year. Both companies

hope to leverage the existing database of customers to market these cards. ICICI

credit cards are available in 40 cities. In Maharashtra, ICICI is located in

five places. There are plans to expand to smaller towns such as Jalgaon to cater

to customer needs. Vaidyanathan said that the company was mapping a footprint

for Kerala including Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram, Jalgaon, Solapur and

Kolhapur in Maharashtra. The roll-out should be faster in the next seven months,

he said.