Banks and credit card issuers are not only glowing slow in their card business but also reducing the sale of new cards. From the past six months, private lenders have reduced their direct selling agents by almost 25%. These agents were given the job of selling credit cards.

A senior officer from a leading private sector bank said, "We have curtailed the use of DSAs in India as the concept is not working according to our expectation. Also, with the economy slowing and prices moving northward, we are becoming careful about unsecured lending at this critical juncture."

"We have relied more on our in-house team to sell credit cards, as it helps connect with customers better," said a senior officer form HDFC Bank.

The private banks are cutting in their marketing expenses via this route, said Credit Card Management Consultancy, a firm that keep records of the credit card industry.

According to the RBI data, there have been increasing customer complaints about the banking services and majority of them are related to credit cards services. "The maximum complaints were received in respect of credit cards across all bank groups, barring nationalized and old private sector banks. This was followed by complaints relating to failure on commitments made, deposit accounts, remittances and loans and advances (general)," said RBI.

Complaints against the public sector banks were recorded highest at 25,694, or 56.13% of the total complaints. On the other hand, private and foreign lenders reported for 30.48% and 13.39% of the total complaints respectively.

RBI also informed that outstanding amount under credit card receivables had increased by nearly 50% during the year ending March 31st, 2008. This was attributed to the rising use of credit cards in the industry.