Despite the challenging market conditions, leading private sector lender, Axis Bank has decided to step up its credit and debit card base to over 13 million (1.3 crore) by end-fiscal, a top official said.

"We expect to add 24 lakh new cardholders this year. This would take the toal card-base to around 1.34 crore. There is a healthy demand for card-based banking products in the market," Axis Bank's Vice President - Retail Financial Services, Anuj Khosla said.

The bank has so far issued 1.1 crore cards, out of which the number of credit cards constituted 5.5 lakh and the rest debit cards.

The bank is currently implementing an aggressive strategy to grow its card-base and is adding nearly two lakh debit cards and 35,000 credit cards per month, Khosla said.

With rising number of Non-Performing Assets (NPA) on credit cards in the industry last year, banks are going slow on expanding their credit card-base and is focusing more on growing their debit card business, Khosla said.

Many banks, including the market leaders, had seen a sharp rise in NPAs on their unsecured loans over the past one year, prompting many of them to bring down or wind up the exposure to such credits.