Citibank, Jet Air unveil silver card

Citibank and Jet Airways launched the 'Jet Airways Citibank Silver Credit Card' in association with MasterCard International.

This is the first airline silver credit card which has been launched in the country. Banks have been tying up with airlines in the last two years to tap the top end of the business class customer base.

Citibank had launched a Jet Airways Citibank Gold Card around two years earlier. American Express has tied up with Indian Airlines to launch a gold card while Standard Chartered Bank recently tied up with Sahara Airlines to launch a gold card.

"The Silver Card is designed for the mass market. Worldover, airlines cards are one of the most successful credit cards. With the costs going down and even if a fraction of the railway passengers start using airlines, it would be a big market," said Sarvesh Sarup, head- consumer banking, Citibank.

Citibank currently has 1.9 million cards and it adds around 30,000-35,000 cards a month. The bank is expecting around 50,000 cards through this association with Jet Airways in the first year.

Adds Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, "The Jet Airways Citibank Gold Card has sold around 22,000 cards. This is now a good opportunity to go into the mass markets."

Citibank is now looking at the telecom, retailing and airlines market to increase the card base through co-branded or affinity cards.

"This helps us to build loyalty programmes and also bring down the attrition rate," says Atul Malik, business manager - cards, Citibank.

On the question of losses of Jet Airways in the last year, Prock-Schauer said, "In the last financial year, we had made losses of around Rs 245 crore. We are trying to improve the situation through a better cost structure, streamlining processes to become more productive, and we are in talks with external providers and also looking at bringing down the high communication costs."