AU CS Credit Card

Quick verdict: A lifetime-free metal card built specifically for Company Secretaries — 8 reward points per ₹100 (~2%) on dining, travel, tax payments and software, plus 2 domestic airport lounge visits a quarter and 25% cashback on your ICSI membership renewal. It earns hard on exactly the categories a practising CS spends on, at zero fee. The one thing to know before you get excited: you must be an ICSI member to hold it — this card is not open to the general applicant.

The AU CS Credit Card is the Company Secretary counterpart to AU's CA card, and it's built on the same idea: take the everyday and professional spends of one profession — tax payments, software subscriptions, dining, travel — and reward them hard, on a no-fee metal card. If you're a practising or qualified member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), it's one of the more generous zero-fee cards you can hold. If you're not an ICSI member, you can stop reading here — eligibility is restricted to the profession, and there's no general-applicant route in.

What it earns

• 8 reward points per ₹100 (~2% at ₹0.25 a point) on dining, travel, tax payments and software purchases — the core of the card, and the categories a working CS actually spends on.
• 2 reward points per ₹100 (~0.5%) on other retail spends, and 1 point per ₹100 (~0.25%) on utility, telecom and insurance — a modest base rate, so this isn't a card to route general spending through.
• 25% cashback on your ICSI membership renewal — a small, profession-specific perk that pays back a slice of your annual dues.
• 2,000 bonus points for spending ₹5,000 within 30 days of activation — a modest but easy welcome.

At ₹0.25 a point, the 8-points-per-₹100 rate works out to roughly a 2% return on the bonus categories, which is strong for a card that costs nothing. The catch — and it's the usual one — is that the top rate is fenced to those four categories; spend outside them earns the 0.5% base (0.25% on utility, telecom and insurance), so the card rewards a specific pattern rather than broad use.

The metal-card extras

Beyond rewards, the CS card carries the perks AU reserves for its nicer cards:

• 2 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits per quarter (up to 8 a year) — genuine airport access, not the railway-lounge access some entry-level AU cards offer. Since 1 October 2026 a quarter's visits need ₹50,000 of spend on the card in the previous calendar quarter.
• A 1% fuel surcharge waiver on transactions between ₹400 and ₹5,000, capped at ₹250 per statement cycle.
• A metal card form factor and lifetime-free status — no joining fee, no annual fee, no spend condition to keep it free.

Who it's really for

This is a profession-gated card, and that single fact decides everything. Only ICSI members — practising or qualified Company Secretaries — can hold it. For that reader, it's an easy yes: if you're already paying for tax filings, professional software and the occasional client dinner or travel, you're earning ~2% back on exactly those spends, on a metal card that never charges you a rupee. The 25% ICSI-renewal cashback is a nice touch that speaks to who the card is for.

For everyone else, it simply isn't available — and even if it were, the 0.5% base rate on non-bonus spend means it wouldn't be a compelling all-rounder. It's a specialist tool for a specific holder, not a general-purpose card.

The honest read

The AU CS card is genuinely generous within its lane — ~2% on the right categories, real airport lounge access, a low 1.99% forex markup that makes it usable on client or regulatory travel abroad, a metal card, all lifetime-free — and it mirrors the well-regarded AU CA card almost exactly. Its limits are honest ones: the top rate is narrow (four categories), the base rate is modest, and the whole thing is locked behind ICSI membership. None of those are flaws so much as the terms of the deal. If you qualify and your spending lands in the bonus categories, few zero-fee cards will out-earn it. If your spend is spread thin across everyday categories, the 0.5% base leaves a lot on the table, and a broad flat-rate card may serve you better.

The bottom line

For a practising Company Secretary, the AU CS Credit Card is close to a no-brainer: a lifetime-free metal card earning ~2% on tax, software, dining and travel, with 25% back on your ICSI renewal, quarterly airport lounge access and a fuel-surcharge waiver. The only real question is whether you're an ICSI member — because that's the gate, and there's no way around it. Qualify, and you're holding one of the more generous zero-fee professional cards in the market; don't, and there's nothing here to chase.