What changed
Bandhan Bank announced its first credit cards on 7 September 2026 — four variants, live on the bank's own site. Business Standard reports the portfolio runs on Mastercard; Bandhan's own pages do not name the network.
| Joining | Renewal | Waiver at | Base earn | Forex | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sparks | Nil | ₹499 | ₹50,000 | 2 pts / ₹200 | 3.50% |
| Ignite | Nil | ₹999 | ₹1,00,000 | 4 pts / ₹200 | 3.50% |
| Flare | ₹2,499 | ₹2,499 | ₹6,00,000 | 10 pts / ₹200 | 1.99% |
| Lumina | ₹9,999 | ₹9,999 | ₹12,00,000 | 16 pts / ₹200 | 1% |
Lumina is the one worth attention: a 1% foreign currency markup, unlimited international lounge access and 8 domestic visits a quarter at select airports, 4 airport meet-and-greet services, and a ₹10,000 Oberoi e-voucher on ₹20,000 of spend in the first 30 days.
Retail interest is tiered by relationship on the top two cards — Lumina charges 1.50% a month to existing customers holding a CASA relationship and 3.50% to new ones; Flare charges 2.00% against 3.50%. Sparks and Ignite are 3.50% flat.
Who is affected
Nobody's existing card changes. This is a new issuer entering the market, and none of the 62 cards we track is affected.
It matters because the 1% forex markup on Lumina is genuinely low. For comparison, HDFC's own MITC puts Infinia, Diners Club Black and Tata Neu Infinity at 2%, and most of the market sits at 3.5% — the number our forex markup guide explains.
What to do
Wait, and watch two things.
The forex claim needs a spend to justify the fee. At 1% against a typical 3.5%, Lumina saves ₹2,500 for every ₹1,00,000 spent abroad. Recovering the ₹9,999 fee on markup alone therefore takes about ₹4 lakh of foreign spend a year, before any reward value. Below that the case rests on the lounge access and the Oberoi voucher, not the markup.
The fee waivers are demanding at the bottom. Sparks asks ₹50,000 a year to waive ₹499 and Ignite ₹1,00,000 to waive ₹999 — reachable, but both cards earn at 2 and 4 points per ₹200 with no published point value, so we cannot yet compute what they return. Bandhan publishes no rupee valuation for its reward points, and until it does, any percentage figure quoted for these cards is someone's assumption rather than the issuer's.
We are not adding these to our database yet, for the reason we did not add the AU Zaggle card in July: a headline earn rate without a published redemption value is not a rate. When Bandhan publishes one, we will compute the net value the way we do for every other card.
Sources
- Bandhan Bank — credit cards — issuer site, linked from the bank's own homepage, read 8 September 2026
- Bandhan Bank — Lumina, Flare, Ignite and Sparks — fees, earn rates and benefits, each read 8 September 2026
- Business Standard — Bandhan Bank enters credit card business with four variants on Mastercard — 7 September 2026, the only source for the Mastercard partnership