If you are late in making the credit card payment on time, your CIBIL score may go down and moreover, you end up paying a late fee along with interest on the due amount. Many a time, a credit card customer intends to make the payment on time but fails to do so due to a personal emergency, or some even just forget the due date.  

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Is there any relief for such credit card late payment to customers?

Yes, recent RBI guidelines have provided relief to such genuine credit card late payment. However, the payment must be made within three days of the due date. According to the RBI’s master direction, penal interest, late payment charges and other related charges can be levied only on the outstanding amount after the due date and not on the total amount.

According to the “Master Direction” by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), credit card issuers can report an account as “past due” to credit information agencies or levy any penalty only if the credit card account remains “past due” for over 3 days.

“Card-issuers shall report a credit card account as ‘past due’ to credit information companies (CICs) or levy penal charges, viz. late payment charges and other related charges, if any, only when a credit card account remains ‘past due’ for more than three days,” says RBI’s Master Direction – Credit Card and Debit Card – Issuance and Conduct Directions, 2022.

“The number of ‘days past due’ and late payment charges shall, however, be computed from the payment due date mentioned in the credit card statement, as specified under the regulatory instructions on ‘Prudential norms on Income Recognition, Asset Classification and Provisioning pertaining to Advances’ amended from time to time,” it adds.