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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on October 11, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: The country’s largest lender by assets, Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), which is expecting to issue 15,000 new credit cards under its latest FC Barcelona tie-up, is targeting up to RM130 million consumer spending from the issuance.

As such, the bank is expecting both its credit and debit card billings market share to rise 1%, or RM2 billion, to 30% in the next six months from 29% (RM50 billion) currently, according to its senior executive vice-president of head of cards and group community financial services, B Ravintharan.

“The main focus is that we want to engage with customers and we want them to pay using credit cards, which will probably increase our market share in terms of billings from 29% to 30%,” he said after the launch of the co-branded credit and debit cards yesterday.

Ravintharan said the bank is currently the leader in the cards business in Malaysia, with over two million credit cards in circulation, while debit cards accounted for about 11 million.

“For debit cards billings, there is still a lot of room to grow. Soon, there will come a time when [the usage of] debit cards will catch up with credit cards,” he said.

Under the partnership with FC Barcelona, Maybank will be offering both the Maybank FC Barcelona Visa Signature Credit Card and Maybank FC Barcelona Visa Debit Platinum Card to its Malaysian customers.

“We are the official bank for FC Barcelona in Malaysia. We will also be extending this partnership to Singapore next year in January 2018.

“This new card is targeted to our devoted FC Barcelona supporters, who are also our emerging affluent customers,” Ravintharan said.

He said there is no annual fee for both Maybank FC Barcelona cards, and the credit card offers 2% cash back on retail spending for 10 months, capped at RM50 a month, and 10% cash back on retail spending for May and August, capped at RM100 a month, while there is an additional 0.10% per annum interest rate on the savings account for debit card holders who sign up for the Maybank2U premier account online.

Users of the new credit cards stand a chance to win trips to Camp Nou, the home stadium of FC Barcelona, to watch a Barcelona match. They will also get attractive discounts periodically on tickets for FC Barcelona matches, and the club’s merchandise.

Meanwhile, FC Barcelona commercial director Xavier Asensi said FC Barcelona hopes the partnership with Maybank will enable the club to get closer to their fans in Malaysia and Singapore. 

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