Paisabazaar Step-Up SBM Credit Card
DowngradeA credit-builder that pays 0.25% — take it to start a file, not to earn anything.
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: None published — neither the KFS nor the rewards document carries a welcome benefit.
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 utilities and 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 from the first rupee
At ₹1,000 a month — ₹12,000 a year — on the everyday mix this card returns ₹0 gross (earn ₹0) against its ₹0 fee = ₹0 net — at or above ₹0 from the first rung we price. 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 #415
Why #415 0.25% is the thinnest earn on any card here, and it is not an accident — Step-Up is a credit-builder that Paisabazaar has since superseded with Paisa Plus on the same bank's licence at four to six times the rate. Ranked as the entry rung it is, and read the sibling first.
Paisabazaar prices its own point and the number is low: "1 Reward Point = Rs. 0.25", redeemed in the Paisabazaar app and "adjusted in the next billing cycle" against the card — a statement credit, not a voucher. You need 400 points before you can redeem anything, which is ₹40,000 of spend for ₹100 back.
The take
Step-Up does exactly what its name says and nothing more. Deposit ₹2,000 with SBM Bank, get a card with a limit worth 90% of it, no income proof and no credit history required, and start building a file. The renewal fee is ₹0 forever, and the joining fee disappears entirely once the deposit clears ₹5,000 — below that you pay ₹500 on a ₹2,000 deposit or ₹250 on a ₹5,000 one, which on the smallest tier is a quarter of your own collateral. As a reward card it is close to pointless. One reward point per ₹100 at 25 paise a point is 0.25%, the thinnest earn on this board, and you need 400 points — ₹40,000 of spend — before you can redeem the first ₹100. Wallet loads, rent, fuel, utilities, insurance, cash and anything on EMI earn nothing at all. Foreign spend costs the full 3.5%, and there is no lounge access and no transfer route. The decisive fact is on the same bank's own page: Paisabazaar now sells Paisa Plus through SBM too, at 1% on everything and 1.5% online for a ₹10,000 deposit. If you are choosing today, choose that one. Step-Up is for someone who already holds it, or who cannot put up more than ₹2,000.
Your renewal — keep, downgrade or cancel
This card charges nothing at the anniversary — its one fee was taken at issue. There is no renewal decision to make; keeping it costs ₹0 a year.
Keep, downgrade or cancel
nothing due at the anniversary · 5 spend bands
The charge ₹0/yr · ₹500 joining (one-time)
At your spend
₹600 a year at ₹3,00,000 of annual spend
₹1,300 a year at ₹6,00,000 of annual spend
₹2,500 a year at ₹12,00,000 of annual spend
₹7,600 a year at ₹36,00,000 of annual spend
₹12,600 a year at ₹60,00,000 of annual spend
Everyday earn plus milestones, with no fee to subtract — the same model as the value panel above, so the two cannot disagree. run your exact spend →
The downgrade
SBM Bank (India) 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.
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
- No renewal fee, ever — the KFS prints ₹0 against the annual line
- The joining fee falls away with the deposit: ₹500 + GST at the ₹2,000 minimum, ₹250 at ₹5,000, and Nil above ₹5,000
- The lowest deposit door SBM publishes: ₹2,000, with the credit line at 90% of it
- No income proof and no credit history; reward points are redeemed against the card, not on a catalogue
Watch out
- 0.25% is the whole earn — 1 reward point per ₹100 at a published ₹0.25 a point
- You need 400 points before you can redeem anything, which is ₹40,000 of spend for ₹100 back
- A ₹2,000 deposit gets a VIRTUAL CARD ONLY, and costs ₹500 + GST to join — a quarter of the deposit
- Wallet loads, rent, fuel, utilities, insurance, cash withdrawals and EMI conversions earn nothing
- 3.5% foreign markup, a fuel surcharge of up to 2%, and no lounge access of any kind
- ₹750 late fee above ₹10,000 outstanding; cash costs 2.5% with a ₹250 minimum
- Paisabazaar's own newer SBM card, Paisa Plus, pays 1%–1.5% against this card's 0.25% — compare them before applying
- A 1% processing fee applies to rent and education payments from 15 July 2026, and it is not refunded if the payment is reversed
What these points actually fly
No live transfer route takes Statement cashback (₹) 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
10 sourced rules · 6 pay zero
Paisabazaar publishes a single "Disallowed Categories" table against a flat 1 reward point per ₹100 (₹0.25 a point). Everything not on the table earns the base 0.25%; everything on it earns nothing. Note that the fuel exclusion is written as MCC 5541 only, where most issuers list 5541 and 5542 together — we treat the whole fuel category as excluded rather than invent a 5542 exception the document does not draw.
- Wallet loads · excluded "E-Wallet Loading — 6540" is the first row of Paisabazaar's disallowed table
- Rent & property management · excluded "Rent Payment — 6513"; and from 15 July 2026 SBM adds a non-refundable 1% processing fee on the payment itself
- Fuel · excluded "Fuel Payment — 5541". The card also carries a fuel surcharge of up to 2% of the transaction amount, which is a charge and not a waiver
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded "Utility Payment — 4900"
per SBM Bank (India) T&C · rank every card by spend category →
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?
income, age and the route in
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.
No income proof and no credit history. Apply through the Paisabazaar app, book an SBM Bank fixed deposit for a tenure of 390 days, and the card is issued against it with a limit of 90% of the deposit, which keeps earning SBM's rate while pledged. The deposit decides two things: what you pay to join — ₹500 + GST at ₹2,000, ₹250 + GST at ₹5,000, nothing above ₹5,000 — and whether you get plastic at all, since SBM issues a virtual card only on a ₹2,000 deposit. Reward points are redeemed in the Paisabazaar app and credited against the next billing cycle.
per the official SBM Bank (India) 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
5 of 7 MITC rows published
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
FEE COLUMNS: FOUR rows, and the joining fee is TIERED BY DEPOSIT rather than flat — "Joining Fee for FD of Rs. ₹2000 (Minimum FD Amount: ₹2000) — ₹500 + 18% GST"; "Joining Fee for FD of Rs. ₹5000 — ₹250 + 18% GST"; "Joining Fee for FD more than ₹5000 — Nil"; "Annual Fee/Renewal Fee — ₹0". The card file carries annualFee 0 and no joiningFee, because the modal deposit clears ₹5,000 and the modal joining charge is therefore Nil — but a ₹2,000-deposit applicant genuinely pays ₹500 + GST, a quarter of their own collateral, and gets a VIRTUAL CARD ONLY ("Please Note: Only Virtual Card will be issued for FD of Rs. 2K"). Fuel surcharge up to 2% of the transaction amount. THE EARN IS 0.25% AND IS PUBLISHED IN FULL: "Currently, you will get 1 Reward Point on every purchase of Rs. 100" and "1 Reward Point = Rs. 0.25", redeemed in the Paisabazaar app with no fee and "adjusted in the next billing cycle" against the card — a statement credit, not a voucher — with "A minimum of 400 Reward Points are required for redemption", which is ₹40,000 of spend for the first ₹100 back. Cash earns nothing. Disallowed categories by MCC: 6540 e-wallet loading, 6513 rent, 5541 fuel, 4900 utilities, 6300 insurance, 6010 manual cash disbursement, 6011 ATM cash, and EMI payments. No monthly or annual reward cap is published. NO LOUNGE ACCESS and NO NETWORK is named. Secured on an SBM fixed deposit booked for 390 days; credit limit 90% of it. COMPARE BEFORE APPLYING: Paisabazaar sells a newer card on the same SBM licence, Paisa Plus, at 1%–1.5% against this card's 0.25%. SBM-WIDE, from 15 July 2026: a non-refundable 1% processing fee on rental and education payments.
per the official SBM Bank (India) MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
nothing tracked yet — which is itself a fact
No tracked devaluations or changes yet — this card's history starts here.
Verified against SBM Bank (India)'s own documents on · the net-annual-value engine, at our house ₹/point
Every document behind this page — 4 of them, each with the day we read it
- official Key Fact Statement — a joining fee tiered by deposit (₹500 / ₹250 / Nil), ₹0 annual fee, 3.5% forex, a fuel surcharge up to 2%, and a virtual card only on a ₹2,000 deposit
- official Rewards document — 1 reward point per ₹100, 1 point = ₹0.25, a 400-point minimum redemption, and the excluded-category list
- official SBM's secured-card page — the co-brand block naming Step-Up, the 390-day FD rule, and the 1% rent and education processing fee effective 15 July 2026
- official Most Important Terms & Conditions and Cardholder Member Agreement — SBM's shared secured credit card document, which defers the reward construct to the per-card page