Paytm HDFC Bank Digital
Keep₹149 a year, 2% on three things, and a ₹500-a-month ceiling on the 1%.
a year at ₹40,000 a month, after the fee
Skip the arithmetic — the board, ranked → · nothing to sign up for
What it's worth to you, after the fee
Welcome: Cashback of up to ₹150 across your first two transactions, each of at least ₹250
Priced on the everyday mix — 30% groceries · 10% utilities · 20% travel · 6% fuel · 34% everything else — with this card's published category rules applied: it earns nothing on fuel here, so that spend is dropped, not paid at the headline, and stops pacing milestones and the waiver. Plus milestones, minus the fee. No accelerator credit — the ranking model on /compare adds ~20% of spend at the card's best accelerator, so its ₹ for this card reads higher.
How these numbers are computed — and why the rankings show a bigger one →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
Pays for itself at ₹2,000 a month
At ₹2,000 a month — ₹24,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹200 gross (earn ₹200) against its ₹149 fee = ₹100 net — the first rung at or above ₹0. The ladder runs in ₹1,000 steps to ₹1,00,000 a month and ₹10,000 steps to ₹5,00,000; figures are rounded to the hundred, and the accelerator is never credited.
2 notes on the card itself: how it is issued · why it ranks #219
Why #219 The cheapest card on this board that is not free — ₹149 — and it behaves like it: 2% on three narrow slices, 1% everywhere else, and every leg capped in the low hundreds of rupees a month. It is here because it is real, widely issued through the Paytm app, and costs almost nothing; it is ranked here because it does nothing at an airport at all.
Cashback on this card is not money, it is CashPoints — HDFC's own line is that "CashBack as per the product features will be credited in the form of CashPoints, which can be redeemed by the customer against their statement balance". At ₹1 against the statement that is a clean rupee, but the same balance is worth far less pointed anywhere else, and HDFC caps overall CashBack redemption at 3,000 points a month across every avenue.
The take
There is not much card here, and that is the point — HDFC charges ₹149 a year and waives even that on ₹25,000 of retail spend, which almost anyone who uses the card at all will clear. What you get for it is three rates: 2% on Paytm Scan & Pay at merchants HDFC picks by Merchant ID, 2% on Swiggy and Uber, and 1% on everything else including ordinary Paytm transactions. Every leg is capped, and the caps are small: ₹250 a month on each 2% and ₹500 a month on the 1%, so the whole card tops out around ₹1,000 a month of CashBack and the 1% stops entirely once your monthly spend passes ₹50,000. The welcome is honest and tiny — up to ₹150 across your first two transactions of at least ₹250 each. Two details a careful reader should not skip. First, the earn is not money: it accrues as CashPoints, and while HDFC will let you burn them against the statement at ₹1, it also caps overall CashBack redemption at 3,000 points a month, which is a real ceiling on a card you use heavily. Second, the "select merchants" behind the Scan & Pay 2% are a list, not a category — HDFC says only the mentioned Merchant IDs qualify, and that list is maintained rather than published in full. As a travel instrument it is nothing: no lounge, no partner, no points that reach a programme, and a 1% markup on every international dynamic-currency transaction. There is one wrinkle worth flagging between HDFC's own two documents: the card page gives you 40 days to spend ₹1,000 for the first-year fee waiver and the bank's Key Fact Statement says 30. On a ₹149 card the stakes are small, but the disagreement is real. A cheap, narrow, capped card that does its small job.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
Here is the fee, the spend that clears it, and everything that has moved under this card since you last decided.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
₹149/yr at stake · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹149/yr
The waiver ₹25,000 of spend in the year before renewal — about ₹2,083 a month — and the renewal fee is not charged.
Break-even ₹2,000 a month — ₹24,000 a year — is where this card's value crosses its fee.
At your spend
₹2,800 a year, net of the fee, at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹5,600 a year, net of the fee, at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹6,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹6,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
₹6,000 a year, net of the fee, at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend — this clears the waiver, so no fee is charged
Everyday earn plus milestones, minus the fee — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
Your copy of this card
You hold this card.
Kept on this device, in your browser. It is never sent to us, never synced, and nothing else on the site reads it yet.
The downgrade
HDFC Bank publishes no document naming a card you can step down to, so we name none — an invented product change is a phone call you would waste. That leaves keep or cancel, and the numbers above are the whole of it.
What has changed under this card
- 1 Sep 2026 SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta Deals issuer-wide
- 1 Jul 2026 HDFC caps SmartBuy brand-voucher rewards issuer-wide
- 15 May 2026 HDFC lifts its DCC markup to 1.75% across the card range issuer-wide
We price what is in force today — a change that has not happened yet is not in these numbers. the full archive for this card →
If you call to cancel
What the bank offers to keep you is the one fact this desk cannot compute. We are collecting those reports — dated, and only in aggregate — before publishing any: an offer one reader was made is not one you are owed. Called about this card? Tell us what they offered →
The desk publishes subscribable .ics feeds for the dates it knows — offer deadlines, devaluations, expiry audits. Your renewal date is not one of them: only your statement knows it.
What's good
- ₹149 a year, waived outright on ₹25,000 of retail spend in the renewal year
- 2% on Paytm Scan & Pay at select merchants, and another 2% on Swiggy and Uber
- 1% on every other retail purchase, Paytm transactions included
- Up to ₹150 back across your first two transactions of ₹250 or more
- 1% fuel-surcharge waiver at fuel stations across India
Watch out
- Every leg is capped monthly: ₹250 on each 2%, ₹500 on the 1% — the whole card is worth about ₹1,000 a month at the very most
- The 1% stops at ₹50,000 of monthly spend, which is where its ₹500 ceiling bites
- The Scan & Pay 2% applies only to merchants on HDFC's own Merchant ID list, which the bank maintains rather than publishes
- Cashback accrues as CashPoints, and HDFC caps overall CashBack redemption at 3,000 points a month
- Wallet loads, fuel, EMI, rent and government spends earn nothing
- No lounge access, no transfer partner, no airline or hotel programme — CashPoints reach none of them
- 1% mark-up on international dynamic-currency-conversion transactions, and rent carries a 1% fee from the second rental transaction of a calendar month
- HDFC's own two documents disagree on the first-year waiver window: the card page says 40 days, the August-2026 Key Fact Statement says 30
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes HDFC Bank CashPoints into a programme that publishes an award chart. These points buy catalogue and portal redemptions, not award seats — so this page has no flight to show you, and will not invent one.
what the cards that DO reach a chart can fly — 2,196 corridors priced →
What earns, what doesn't
7 sourced rules · 5 pay zero
HDFC scopes this card's accelerators by MERCHANT ID rather than by category — "Only the mentioned categories basis the Merchant IDs / Transaction IDs in the list shall be applicable for relevant cashbacks" — and the list is maintained rather than published. Every leg is separately capped: ₹250 a month on each 2%, ₹500 on the 1%.
- Fuel · excluded Fuel spends earn no cashback; the 1% fuel surcharge waiver applies instead
- Wallet loads · excluded Wallet loads earn nothing
- Rent & property management · excluded Rent earns nothing, and carries a 1% fee from the second rental transaction of a calendar month
- Government / tax · excluded Government spends earn nothing
Does your spend count toward the fee waiver?
not published — and we say which
₹25,000 a year is the bar that waives the ₹149 fee. A different question from the one above — earning points and counting toward a threshold are separate rules, and issuers write them separately.
Not published. HDFC Bank states what the Paytm HDFC Bank Digital earns and does not earn, but has not published which spend categories count toward the fee waiver — the ₹25,000 bar. We won't guess it from the earn table or from a sibling card: Axis published three cards' rules on one day and all three lists differed. If you hold this card and have it in writing from the issuer, send us the document and we'll source it.
Lounge access
0 of 793 tracked doors
No lounge access. This card opens exactly 0 of 793 tracked lounge doors — board with the crowd, or find a card that doesn't →
Can you get it?
the route in — no cutoffs published
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
A Paytm-app product: HDFC issues it in partnership with Paytm and the funnel runs through the Paytm app rather than the bank's own apply flow. HDFC publishes no income floor for it. On the fee, note the shape rather than the size: ₹149 is a single yearly membership charge, not a joining fee plus a renewal fee, and it is waived in the first year on ₹1,000 of retail spend and thereafter on ₹25,000 in a calendar year. The two official documents differ on the first-year window — the card's fees page says "the first 40 days", the August-2026 Key Fact Statement says "within 30 days" — and we record both rather than picking one silently.
HDFC Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
per the official HDFC Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the board by what you can get →
The fine print
0 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
HDFC's Key Fact Statement has ONE combined fee column headed "Joining / Annual membership Fee" — nothing to invert, unlike SBI. This card's own fees page prints a single figure and calls it yearly: "Yearly Membership Fee: Rs.149 + GST", waived in year one on ₹1,000 of retail spend and thereafter on ₹25,000 in a calendar year. WINDOW CONFLICT, unresolved: the fees page says "the first 40 days", the August-2026 KFS says "Rs.1,000 within 30 days". Both are current HDFC documents. EARN: 2% on Paytm Scan & Pay at select merchants (capped ₹250 a month), 2% on Swiggy and Uber (capped ₹250 a month), 1% on all retail purchases including Paytm (capped ₹500 a month) — so the card tops out near ₹1,000 a month and the 1% stops at ₹50,000 of monthly spend. The percentages are RUPEE percentages here, not point counts: HDFC's own worked example for this family reads "3% cashback on Rs. 20000 (i.e. Rs. 600)". Earn accrues as CashPoints redeemable against the statement balance, with overall CashBack redemption capped at 3,000 points a month since 1 Feb 2023. Nothing earns on wallet loads, fuel, EMI, rent or government spends. Rent carries a 1% fee from the second rental transaction of a calendar month. Welcome: up to ₹150 across the first two transactions of ₹250 or more. Only merchants on HDFC's own Merchant ID list qualify for the accelerated rates. NO LOUNGE.
per the official HDFC Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
8 dated changes
Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to. Every one is dated here; the tracker carries each one's before → after and the write-up.
- 1 Sept 2026SmartBuy moves Amazon Pay gift cards to 1X under Insta DealsAmazon Pay Gift Voucher sat in SmartBuy's accelerated tier — 'up to 5X Reward Points or 5% cashback' → 'Insta Deals: 1 % Instant Discount + 1X Reward Points' — this brand is out of the accelerated tier
The most-farmed HDFC voucher route stopped being a points play. SmartBuy's own voucher storefront now shows the Amazon Pay Gift Voucher under a new "Insta Deals" tile reading "1 % Instant Discount + 1X Reward Points", and the page's own description flipped from "up to 5X Reward Points or 5% cashback" to "up to 1X". The comparison that settles it sits on the same storefront: the Amazon Fresh voucher still carries an "Accelerated Rewards — Upto 5X Reward Points RPs / 5% Cashback" block that the Amazon Pay page no longer has, so this is one brand leaving the accelerated tier, not the tier closing. The date, honestly: the Insta Deals offer ("Flat 1% OFF", ₹10,000 monthly limit) was already live in the page's own data on 31 August 2026, the reward line still read 5X in the 1 September 16:26 UTC archive capture, and read 1X when this desk fetched the page on 2 September — so 1 September is the community's effective date sitting inside a window we can bracket from primary captures, not a figure HDFC published. The bank has announced nothing and no SmartBuy page carries a notice. Two pieces of context for the size of it: brand vouchers were already sub-capped at 3,000 accelerated points a month from 1 July 2026, and Amazon Pay vouchers disappeared from the portal entirely for stretches of July and August before returning in this shape. Flipkart and Amazon Fresh vouchers still pay the accelerated rate; the ₹10,000-a-month Amazon Pay lane now pays base earn plus the 1% instant discount.
- 18 Aug 2026The Harley-Davidson Diners Club drops out of HDFC's bank-wide MITC
- 6 Aug 2026HDFC caps Regalia Gold miles transfers at 50,000 points a month
- 25 Jul 2026HDFC switches on 22 transfer partners for BizPower
- 16 Jul 2026Regalia Gold's cash-out rate quietly drops to ₹0.15
- 1 Jul 2026HDFC caps SmartBuy brand-voucher rewards
- 1 Jul 2026Regalia Gold's domestic lounge access goes spend-gated
- 1 Jul 2026Diners Club Privilege ties its lounge vouchers to prior-quarter spend
Every HDFC Bank change we've dated → 37 events since 2001, 23 of them nerfs — worst year 2026.
Verified against HDFC Bank's own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 3 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Paytm HDFC Bank Digital product page — the 2%/2%/1% grid with its per-leg monthly caps and the two-transaction welcome
- official Fees and charges — a single ₹149 yearly membership fee, waived first year on ₹1,000 in 40 days and thereafter on ₹25,000
- official HDFC Bank Key Fact Statement cum MITC, Version 4.6 dated August-2026 — the ₹149-per-annum row and its waiver arms