ICICI’s recent devaluation of rewards has completely shattered my credit card usage plans. Here is a breakdown of my current situation and thoughts on next steps:
Current Card Usage
Active ICICI Cards:
ICICI Sapphiro
ICICI Coral Rupay (for UPI scans)
Amazon Pay ICICI for most of my spending
Impact of ICICI Devaluation: The rewards on these cards have become so poor that I no longer see value in continuing with ICICI credit cards, or even their banking services.
Current Banking Setup
ICICI Wealth Management (WM) Savings Account: I use this account because it’s tied to my salary, but given the devaluation, I’m considering moving away from ICICI entirely.
My primary savings account is with SBI. This account is linked to my mutual fund SIPs and other important financial matters, so I prefer to keep it untouched.
Preference: I’d like to have my salary account, credit card, and other services with the same bank to simplify operations.
Looking Ahead: Banking and Card Preferences
Not keen on HDFC: I’m mentally resistant to diving deeper into HDFC’s ecosystem unless other options fail.
Hesitant about Axis: I have concerns about Axis Bank and am not confident in moving there either.
Considering DBS or HSBC: My company has tie-ups with HSBC and DBS, and I’m leaning towards opening a salary account with DBS for premium banking and to gain access to a premium card (ideally LTF).
If I make this move, I’ll likely close my ICICI WM savings account, as maintaining the required average balance (AMB) and total relationship value (TRV) will no longer be feasible.
Monthly Expenses Breakdown
Here’s a high-level view of my expenses:
Swiggy: ₹15k per month (covered with HDFC Swiggy card)
Amazon purchases: ₹5k per month (covered with Apay ICICI card)
Fuel: ₹15k per month (mainly from Jio BP pumps, I don't think any card tie-ups are there for Jio BP, I'm OK to leave this)
Utilities, bills, insurance: ₹30k per month (covered with Apay ICICI card)
Travel and Hotel: ₹20k per quarter or so (Both are rare, not frequent traveller)
Offline UPI Scan: ₹20k per month (covered with ICICI Coral Rupay)
Current Active & Inactive Cards
Active Cards:
ICICI Amazon Pay
HDFC Swiggy
Inactive LTF Cards (I was considering to close them, still not done):
ICICI Sapphiro
ICICI Coral Rupay
IDFC First Wealth
Federal Celesta
Next Steps and What I’m Looking For:
Cards: I don’t want to use more than 3-4 cards in total.
I’m already using HDFC Swiggy extensively but need to add 1-2 more good cards to fit my needs.
Card Requirements: I need:
A Rupay card
A premium card that could cover most of my other expenses.
Impact of ICICI Devaluation: The rewards on these cards have become so poor that I no longer see value in continuing with ICICI credit cards, or even their banking services.
You can move away from ICICI but don't keep all to same bank. Btw, <2.5Lpm all banks same for salary accounts, no use to switch if you fall within that range.
You can move away from ICICI but don't keep all to same bank. Btw, <2.5Lpm all banks same for salary accounts, no use to switch if you fall within that range.
[December 2024]
As we almost reach the end of this year, I just thought of taking some time and reflecting what happened this year.
Closed ICICI salary account, Opened HSBC salary account. Just wanted to try out how is HSBC. Their system, and process are good, without any flaws, but the problem is they are a little bit slow. They are not aggressive and do not provide any attractive offers to catch customers. They are happy with their client base. They don't want to expand aggressively. They are OK with small lot of customers but they provide quality service. They do not rush things, customer care people are well informed. There have only very less banking products, so there is no confusion about the offerings. They know clearly the offers and eligibility for each item. Only thing is it takes some time for us to get used to the system. If you are a matured customer, then HSBC will be good enough. [One thing I noticed is their ATM PINs and credit card PINs are 6-digits contrary to the regular 4-digit PIN for other banks. CC worked on a POS machine, haven't tried using ATM card yet.] One thing I learned about banking services and offerings is not to be greedy, and not to jump and rush. Things will take time to come to us. Give everything some time. Since I do not wish to continue using HSBC, I will move to DBS and HDFC soon for secondary account or salary account.
Still SBI is my primary bank. For regular banking in India, I would still say got with a large bank like SBI, ICICI, HDFC etc. There are huge number of branches and you won't feel lost out anytime. SBI has never failed me in the last 15-20 years. Though I don't have any higher variant account with them, the regular savings account has been more than sufficient for me all these years.
I played around with credit cards this year. Though I just started using cc in late 2022, I was still getting a hang of it in 2023. I am still a cashback man. All of my family spends are split on different cashback cards. We have never been travellers and hotel stayers. I would say covid has shaped my spending patterns a lot in the last 5 years. Apart from discretionary spends, other luxury spends are almost 0. Even then I am surprised that for a family of four, monthly expenses is coming to nearly Rs 85000/-. This should make all of us think how prices of things are rising, how we are spending on items and how expenses are going in India. Even a common family without luxury expenses, surviving needs a lot of skills.
Coming to cards, I got HSBC Platinum (along with salary account), Indusind Tiger and Neu Infinity credit cards, and I closed IDFC First Wealth credit card. Understood that it is not the number of cards, but the utility on each card that matters. I am not a card collector, so it makes zero sense to me in collecting all LTF cards. And say for instance, any app shows 20 rs additional off for one particular bank card, I don't have the regret of not having that card. If we make the best use of what we have, that itself is better than managing all 20 cards. To that, I will be closing HSBC platinum card after getting the joining benefits. IT will take 1-2 months more, but that should be OK.
Coming to 2025, my main aim is to open DBS and/or HDFC bank accounts. One of them will serve as my primary salary account. I may experiment with DBS for some time and then move permanently to HDFC. Being the premier bank in India, nothing beats HDFC if you have the right levers in place. Banking, Fintech, Consumption patterns etc are changing rapidly every day in India. New products are coming to the market every day. We don't have to test everything, we don't have to use everything, we won't miss out anything even if we don't know some things. Just make sure that we have the apps, banks, and cards to take care of our needs. Rest all will flow in the due course. Ultimately, having enough money to spend, and having good health is of utmost importance.
Also this group/community has helped me a lot in understanding a lot about credit cards and banking. There are very few such good communities online, and great people make great communities. I consider myself lucky to be a part of this group. Really awesome information here.
