We've been trying to shift firms to B2B payments: SBI Card MD & CEO

Since June, we have been on an upward trajectory, however, we are still not at pre-Covid levels. But we are getting there, said MD Tewari

SBI Cards and Payment Services (SBI Card) is seeing discretionary spending coming back even as it is yet to reach pre-Covid-19 levels, according to its Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer Ashwini Kumar Tewari, who is banking on the festival season. In an interview with Subrata Panda & Abhijit Lele, Tewari spoke about the trend in spending, recovery from accounts which were under moratorium, and the relevance of cards amid the exponential rise of Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Edited excerpts:

What kind of growth are you seeing in new accounts, and what is the strategy for the rest of the year?

We