New Delhi, April 5: Domestic credit card transactions are likely to surge by nearly a 100 per cent this year to Rs 500 crore from Rs 260 crore in 2004.

?This is happening because of a growing acceptance of debit cards, which act more like payment cards. Transactions in the last four to five years have increased considerably,? said Santanu Mukherjee, country head-south Asia, Visa International.

According to him, while credit cards came to India nearly 20 years ago, it did not gain popularity as people were largely ?credit averse?. However, the change with the entry of payment cards has made a huge difference in the spending pattern.

The estimated market size for debit cards is 140 to 150 million compared with 30 million for credit cards.

A spurt in inbound tourism has significantly contributed to the growth of the card industry.

The inbound international tourists have for the first time crossed the 3-million mark.

International tourists visiting India spent about Rs 490 crore last year, of which transactions worth Rs 120 crore were conducted through credit cards, said Mukherjee while releasing a report on ?trends in spending by visitors in India?. He claimed that of the Rs 490 crore, 18 per cent was spent through Visa cards.

According to statistics shared by the company, international Visa cardholders spent a total of Rs 4,100 crore in India in 2004. Top spenders in the country were cardholders from the US, spending Rs 1,280 crore.

This was followed by the UK with Rs 870 crore, France with Rs 220 crore, Australia with Rs 150 crore and the UAE with Rs 130 crore.

These five countries together accounted for 64 per cent of total Visa spends in India.

However, cardholders from Japan, and China had the highest average Visa spend per transaction among all visitors, the report said. The average spend by cardholders from these two nations were Rs 11,250 and Rs 10,518 respectively. The two gateway cities of New Delhi and Mumbai attracted the highest international inbound spend at 24 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. They were followed by Bangalore (11 per cent), Chennai (8 per cent) and Jaipur (5 per cent).

Pune experienced the fastest growth (87 per cent) in Visa spend in 2004 compared with 2003 followed by Jaipur (69 per cent) and Agra (59 per cent).