AMEX Credit Card- No Target Audience in Kolkata

The credit cards of American Express, also known as AMEX, were introduced in the Indian market in 1993. It is almost 30 years and AMEX is doing good business in India. They have a proven track record of maintaining portfolios of a vast number of HNI customers from all over India.

However, AMEX has also introduced Credit Cards with vendors like PayPal, Shoppers Stop, etc. I had a PayPal AMEX Card, and I used the card for 6 years. Unfortunately, I had to dissociate my relationship with AMEX this year due to certain engagement policies of AMEX.

The negative points 😒 when using the AMEX-PayPal credit card are as follows:

1. The annual fee for the AMEX PayPal card is 2500/-. This had increased considerably in the last 6 years.
2. Most of the vendors in Kolkata do not accept AMEX Cards, be it food joints, local malls, and most importantly, medicine shops and Hospitals/Nursing homes.
3. When buying any electronic items like washing machines, Television, Fridge, the Electronic stores do not provide an EMI option on AMEX Credit Cards. However, I can get the same if purchased via VISA or Mastercard.

Interestingly, whenever, I get my monthly credit card statement from AMEX, there are some offers that are tailor-made for me, noting two examples below:

1. Discount Coupons to dine-out in a restaurant for a couple
2. If I spend one lakh rupees in a year, I will get a 2000/- voucher from Flipkart.

Do I need to mention that in a situation where CORONA is the headline of all the newspapers and news portals, restaurants closed due to lockdown, do these offers make any sense? AMEX-India needs to re-brand with popular merchants like Amazon, Fab-India, The Man Company, NYKA, etc, other than Flipkart!

This concludes the fact that AMEX-India has kept the metro city Kolkata on its least priority list as far as targeting Metro business is concerned. AMEX needs to re-focus and build a relationship with new merchants to target junior-level corporate customers, MSME businessmen, and strategically, introduce student credit cards.