This is the warning note to all the credit card owners that they should pay the card bills before the due time otherwise they will have to pay more than actual due amount in coming days. According to the report, the leading banks have decided to increase the interest rate charged on the credit card dues by 1-3% per month on the transaction in the last 2-3 months.

According to the bank policy, the banks usually grant a bill cycle of 30-45 days of the credit and after the due date of payment, hey charge monthly interest rate on the due amount.

The leading banks including ICICI Bank, SBI Cards and ABN Amro have already increased the interest rates on review of their cost of funds. The ICICI Bank is the market leader in the business of the credit card as it has issued more than 80 lakh credit cards in the market of total 2.3 crore cards.

Sachin Khandelwal, ICICI Bank credit card business head, said that the government has hiked the interest rates on home loans by 3-4%. On the other hand, the banks had not been revised interest on credit card for almost three years.

Now, the bank has decided to revise the interest rates. The bank has reviewed the cost of fund after aligning with the industry that is charging between 3-3.25% per month.

The other leading bank in this business, HDFC Bank, has not yet decided to hike the rates in near future. HDFC spokesperson said that the bank is closely monitoring the industry trends. Still, the bank has no immediate plans to hike the interest rates on credit card dues.

HDFC is currently charging between 2.75-2.95% per month that depend on the different category of customers. On the other hand, SBI Cards that is a Joint Venture between SBI and GE Money, has also hiked the interest rates from 2.99% to 3.1% depnds upon the spending pattern and payment behavior of the consumer.

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