SINGAPORE - OCBC Bank on Sunday (Aug 25) launched a new travel credit card called the OCBC 90°N Card, projected to achieve $1 billion in annual card billings within three years.

This is by enrolling 150,000 fresh graduates, young professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), as well as emerging affluent individuals, said OCBC.

Emerging affluent individuals are defined by the bank as consumers in their 30s and 40s with $100,000 to $200,000 in investible assets.

The new card, although travel themed by allowing the earning of miles for flight tickets, also offers two other reward types found in the market. These are instant cashback ranging from an average of 1.5 per cent to 5 per cent, and reward points per dollar spent which allows for the redemption of dining and shopping privileges.

Through the OCBC 90°N Card, cardmembers will be able to earn 2.1 Travel$ per dollar spent in foreign currency, and 1.2 Travel$ per Singapore dollar spent. Travel$ is the reward point for the card which can be converted into one mile per point.

Cardmembers will also be able to redeem their miles at a 1,000 miles minimum block, compared with the industry norm of 10,000 miles, OCBC said. There will also be no conversion fee and all miles earned using the credit card will have no expiry date.

For cashback, cardmembers can opt to convert 1,000 Travel$ into $10 cashback. As for reward points, cardmembers will be able to convert 1,300 Travel$ to $10 shopping vouchers from various partners.

Mr Desmond Tan, OCBC Bank head of group lifestyle financing, said that overall, overseas credit card expenditure among its cardmembers has "more than doubled" compared to five years ago, and OCBC continues to see strong growth in this category.

"Only a handful of well-established credit cards in the market register annual card billings of more than $1 billion and we are pleased that both our OCBC 365 and OCBC Plus! Visa cards have achieved that number," Mr Tan said.

He added that the bank's total card billings have a compound annual growth rate of 10 per cent over the past three years from a card base of 2.5 million customers.

Hence, given the new card's benefits and the rising trend of frequent travelling among the younger generation, as well as the high percentage of rebates and reward card users who are also keen travellers, OCBC is confident of achieving its $1 billion annual card billings target in three years.

OCBC shares last closed at $10.63 on Friday, down six cents or 0.56 per cent.