This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 8, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd has introduced its Dual Credit Cards that offer customers value-added lifestyle propositions with competitive benefits, through the RHB Cash Back Credit Card and the RHB Rewards Credit Card for both MasterCard and Visa.

The bank hopes to provide customers the options to redeem benefits and savings that it believes will help them manage their daily expenses and overall finances in a more agile manner, it said in a statement yesterday.

The bank targets to raise its new credit card customers by 30% in the first quarter of 2019 via the new credit card offerings.

“Our focus on the RHB Cash Back Credit Card and RHB Rewards Credit Card is based on recent industry statistics which indicate that approximately 50% of market spend distribution spans categories that RHB Cash Back card is promoting, while another 30% of market spend distribution is from categories that RHB Rewards card is promoting.

“By consolidating the features of the two cards, we will be able to capture approximately 80% of the credit card spending of an average customer,” said Nazri Othman, acting head of group retail banking, RHB Banking Group.

“We hope to drive the growth of our credit cards’ spend to achieve double-digit growth year-on-year (y-o-y) at an average of 15%, compared to average market growth rates which stand at 8%,” Nazri added.

The cards also come with contactless ability, said Visa country manager for Malaysia, Ng Kong Boon, adding that Visa is experiencing a strong, triple-digit y-o-y growth for contactless payments in Malaysia, with over four million Visa contactless payments done in a month.

RHB said via the RHB Cash Back Credit Card, customers can enjoy up to 10% cashback on expenditure for daily essentials such as petrol, dining, utilities and grocery and other retail spends, giving customers the chance to earn cashback value of more than RM600 yearly.

As for the RHB Rewards Credit Card, it allows customers to earn reward points up to 10 times the amount spent overseas, online, as well as for the purchases of items like movie tickets, health and insurance products, as well as other retail spends. These points can then be used to redeem a wide range of items.