ICAI Exclusive BOBCARD Credit Card

Quick verdict: You can hold this card only as an active member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, and BOBCARD checks your membership number when you apply. No salary, however high, gets a non-member in. For a CA who qualifies, the ICAI Exclusive is the plainest of BOBCARD's cards for the three professional institutes. It has no joining or annual fee, pays the full 4,000-point quarterly milestone, and comes as a Mastercard with a RuPay variant for UPI. We'd carry it for the 2% forex markup, the 12 domestic lounge visits and the ₹5 lakh of professional indemnity cover. It's the wrong card for groceries and fuel, which earn nothing at all.

"Exclusive" is literal here. There's no side door for non-members, and a good credit score won't open one. Members apply with their ICAI membership number and proof that the membership is active, plus PAN, Aadhaar or another address proof, a recent photograph and income proof. Salaried members send salary slips for that last one, and self-employed members send their ITR.

BOBCARD runs the same formula for two other institutes. Company Secretaries get the ICSI Diamond, whose milestone pays 3,999 points a quarter rather than 4,000, and Cost Accountants get CMA One, the only one of the three with a joining fee, all of ₹1. Neither is open to you on ICAI membership alone, so your institute picks the card long before any feature does.

Forex is the reason to carry it

Most other BOBCARD cards charge 3.5% on foreign-currency spends. This one adds 2%, the same as the fee-paying Eterna and Tiara, and the 1.5-point gap adds up fast. Spend ₹50,000 abroad and you keep ₹750. At ₹1 lakh the saving is ₹1,500, and at ₹2 lakh it reaches ₹3,000, as much as the capped 5X tier can pay in a whole year.

The markup isn't zero, though. Anyone spending abroad every month should get a card with none, and our forex markup guide names the cards that charge nothing. For a CA who travels for work or a holiday a few times a year, 2% on a card with no fee is a very good deal.

The milestone matters more than the 5X tier

Most readers look at the 5X rate first. We'd start with the quarterly milestone, because it's worth more. Once a quarter's purchases pass ₹1 lakh, BOBCARD adds 4,000 bonus points, which is ₹1,000 at the issuer's own value of ₹0.25 a point. Do that every quarter and you collect 16,000 points, or ₹4,000 a year, on a little over ₹4 lakh of spending. Read the threshold closely. It's ₹1 lakh or your credit limit, whichever is higher, so a CA with a ₹2 lakh limit has to go past ₹2 lakh in the quarter.

The 5X categories are dining, online spends and utility bills, where every ₹100 earns 5 points, about 1.25%. All three share one cap of 1,000 points per statement cycle, so ₹20,000 of combined spend uses it up and anything beyond earns the base rate. At best the tier is worth ₹250 a statement.

Everything else that isn't excluded earns 1 point per ₹100. That's 0.25%, and it's weak.

Lounges, cover and fuel

Lounge access is domestic only, 12 visits a year released three per quarter. Since 1 January 2025 each quarter's visits depend on the quarter before, which needs at least ₹40,000 of spend. A member chasing the quarterly milestone clears that without trying. A light user loses the next quarter's free visits.

The indemnity cover is what a general-purpose card won't give you. It's worth up to ₹5 lakh and matters most to a CA in practice. Next to it sit accident death covers of ₹15 lakh for air accidents and ₹5 lakh for all others. We don't give any of this a rupee value. The covers are contingent and BOBCARD can pull them without notice. They also depend on the card being used, lapsing if it sat idle through the 90 days before a death.

Fuel earns nothing. Transactions of ₹400 to ₹5,000 at the pump still get the 1% surcharge waiver, capped at ₹250 a statement cycle, but that's a refund of the levy, not a reward.

Where it pays nothing

The exclusion list decides how this card should be used. Fuel, groceries, supermarkets and rent all earn zero. So do education, government payments, insurance premiums and hospitals, and so do wallet loads, rail, bus and toll payments, charity and fast-food outlets. Restaurant dining still gets 5X, but a fast-food counter doesn't. UPI payments on the RuPay variant earn the base point per ₹100 and never 5X.

For most households, groceries and fuel take a large share of the month. A card that pays nothing on them shouldn't be your only card.

Our verdict for ICAI members

Take it if you're an active member who spends abroad now and then, you can put more than ₹1 lakh a quarter through one card, and indemnity cover matters in your practice. It costs nothing to keep, and up to three family members can have lifetime-free add-on cards.

Don't make it your main card. Everyday spending earns too little here and groceries and fuel earn nothing, while a fee-paying card such as the BOB Eterna earns three times the base points per ₹100 for ₹2,499 a year.

As a second card for trips abroad, restaurant bills and online spending, the ICAI Exclusive earns its place. As the only card in your wallet, it won't.