IRCTC Transactions : 52% Jump in 1 year, 23% Failure Rate

IRCTC clocked 7027651 transactions in the month of April, 2010 at a success rate of 77.34% (in total, 9086303 transactions were attempted).

Compared to April 2009 data, the total number of attempted transactions increased by 40% and a significant 52% jump in the total number of successful transactions booked online.

Key insights from April 2010 data

  • Booking done via Credit Cards : 72.36% conversion rate. Best performer is HDFC Payment gateway (77.05%) followed by ICICI Payment gateway (76.87%)
  • Net Banking/Debit Cards : 70% conversion rate, best performer being ABN AMRO, followed by SBI.
  • Cash Cards : 85.54% conversion rate. ITZ Cash tops the chart with 85.4% conversion.

We earlier covered the failure rate of IRCTC and one of the readers left an interesting comment:

Payment Gateway failure on IRCTC is not to question the ability of the PG infrastructure in the country, but many other aspects that have been overlooked.

> Issuing a credit card or debit cart that works in offline mode and acceptances of same on payment gateways are two different things. The assumption that have a credit card means it will work for online payments is not valid. The audience here may not agree to this as we hold the known – Citi, HDFC, ICICI cards etc.

> Many banks (local, state & national banks) are yet to sign up for 3d authentication; lot many even for provisioning online transactions.

> Having a credit card does not mean it will work on any payment gateways available in India. While the last time I visited on IRCTC website – it offers customer multiple payment gateway options. Unfortunately a normal consumer will not know if his credit card is supported on the gateway he or she has chosen.

> Post 3D secure implementation, the amount of server routes it takes to validate and authenticate any transaction have doubled. Knowing the poor internet connectivity in tier 2 cities and broadband penetration in this country…..

> Little has been done in India to educate credit/debit card holders or netbanking users on how to use the same for online transactions. Issuing banks need to take proactive steps on this.

Knowing such issues, 77% approval rate is a achievement.

What’s your opinion?

Download April 2010 data.