YES Prosperity Cashback Credit Card

Quick verdict: The base YES Prosperity Cashback is a small, honest cashback card — 5% back on groceries, movies and utility bills, and 0.5% on everything else, paid as straightforward statement credit. What defines it isn't the rate but the ceilings: two separate ₹100-per-cycle caps (one on the grocery-and-movie 5%, another on the utility 5% — which also needs an auto-pay standing instruction), and — per YES Bank's own terms — the ₹999 fee isn't waivable on spend. Fill both ₹100 caps every month and the card earns its keep by a modest margin; fall short and it quietly loses you money. It's a card for the light spender who'll max the caps, not for anyone expecting cashback to scale with their spending.

This is the ₹999 base of YES Bank's Prosperity cashback line, and it's worth being clear it's a different card from the pricier ₹1,499 Prosperity Cashback Plus, which YES Bank has also closed to new customers. Same idea, tighter limits, lower fee. The whole decision here rests on one piece of arithmetic, so let's do it properly.

How it earns

The structure is simple and cashback-only, credited straight to your statement:

• 5% on groceries and movie tickets — on transactions over ₹500 (smaller ones earn the 0.5% base).
• 5% on utility bill payments — but only when paid via an **auto-pay standing instruction registered

with YES Bank**; manual payments earn the 0.5% base (capped ₹750 a cycle), and utility spends above ₹15,000 in a cycle earn nothing at all.

• 0.5% on other retail spends, with fuel excluded.

On paper, 5% on bills and groceries is an attractive headline — those are categories many cards cap harshly or exclude outright. But the headline comes with hard limits: two separate ₹100-per-cycle caps — one on the grocery-and-movie 5%, another on the utility auto-pay 5%. Each ceiling is low, and it's reached fast. At 5%, ₹100 of cashback is earned on just ₹2,000 of spend — so beyond about ₹2,000 a month on groceries and movies, and another ₹2,000 of auto-paid bills, you're back to earning nothing extra from the 5%.

The 0.5% base on everything else is below average and won't move the needle. In practice, this is a card that pays you a tidy but strictly bounded ₹200 a month at the very best, and no more.

The fee maths you must do

Here's the part that decides it: per YES Bank's Most Important Terms and Conditions, the ₹999 annual fee is not waivable on spend. There's no spend threshold that refunds it.

So the ceiling on value is easy to compute. At ₹100 per cycle from each of the two caps, the most you can earn is roughly ₹2,400 a year — and you only reach that by filling both caps every single month, groceries-and-movies and auto-paid utilities alike. Net off the ₹999 fee and, at best, you're about ₹1,400 ahead. Fill the caps only half the year and the card barely covers its own cost. That's not a reason to avoid it, but it is a reason to be honest with yourself about whether your grocery, movie and auto-paid utility spend will reliably clear ₹2,000 a month in each bucket through this card.

Treat the twin ₹100/cycle caps as the card's entire personality. It rewards a specific, modest pattern of spend — and the moment you expect it to scale with a bigger wallet, it stops making sense.

There's a 1% fuel surcharge waiver (on transactions between ₹500 and ₹3,000, capped ₹100 a month — and no waiver on UPI fuel transactions) as a minor extra, but there's no lounge access or lifestyle bundle here — this is a lean, single-purpose cashback card.

Base or Plus — and who it's for

Neither variant is open to new customers now, but the comparison still shows which of the two holds up better. Because the same ₹100/cycle caps apply whichever variant you hold, the Prosperity Cashback Plus only pays if its higher 0.75% base rate and ₹1,499 fee genuinely suit your spend. For most people whose earn is already limited by the caps, the cheaper base card is the more rational one to hold: you're capped at the same ₹100-per-bucket either way, so paying ₹500 more buys little.

The base Prosperity Cashback fits a light-to-moderate spender who routes groceries, movie tickets and auto-paid utility bills through it, fills the ₹100 caps most months, and likes that cashback lands as statement credit with nothing to redeem. It's the wrong card for a high spender — you'll hit the caps in the first week and the card adds nothing after — and the wrong card for anyone wanting rewards to grow with their spending. If you want scale or richer perks, a stronger everyday rewards card, or a step up to something like the YES Bank Marquee for online-and-travel value, will serve you better.

The bottom line

The base YES Prosperity Cashback does one small thing cleanly: up to ₹200 a month back on groceries, movies and auto-paid bills (₹100 from each bucket), as simple statement credit. For the light spender who'll fill both caps every cycle, it's a fair-value little card at ₹999. But the caps are low, the base rate is weak, and the fee doesn't waive — so run the numbers on your own monthly spend first. If you'll max the caps, keep it; if you won't, it's a card that costs more than it pays.