Despite challenging market conditions, leading private sector lender, Axis Bank, has decided to step

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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 total card-base to around 1.34 crore. Thereis a healthy demand for card-based banking products in the market," Axis Bank's Vice-President - Retail Financial Services Anuj Khosla told PTI.

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

The bank is currently implementing an aggressive strategy to grow its card-base with nearly two lakh debit cards and 35,000 credit cards being added every 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 the debit card business, Khosla said.

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