I hold an citibank credit card billed in Indian Rupees and proud of it. Recently Citibank customer service came back and said as per RBI process they can not issue domestic rupee credit cards to nri\’s.
excerpt from Citibanks reply
\”Please note that as per RBI if a customer stays is likely to cross 182 days, he will be classified as NRI for the financial year. As per process, we do not issue Domestic credit card to the Non Residential Indians(NRI).\”
My reply to Citibank \”Please have a look in the link from the RBI website and please help yourself with the RBI circular regarding the issue of domestic credit cards to nris and the settlement payments from nri\’s nre and nro bank accounts.
http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/notification/pdfs/33116.pdf
In my understanding of the RBI regulations there is NONE restrictions on issuance of domestic credit cards to nri/pio\’s. Hence I do challenge the so called process mentioned in your email.\”
As per this RBI circular issued in Dec 9 2002 domestic banks were allowed to accept payments from non residents nro and other accounts in addition to nre accounts towards settlement of rupee billed credit card payments. Non residents were allowed to have domestic rupee billed credit cards beofre 2002 , with payments coming from nre acocunts.
I like to ask here if any of the non-residents have come across such misinformed (as Citibanks case above) customer service issues?
Also I envisage this will help a few others to KNOW the fact in regards to rupee billed credit cards for non residents.
Best regards
Siddharth