How CardMasters reviews Indian credit cards
CardMasters is an independent credit-card intelligence product. We help people compare recurring value, fees, caps, exclusions and approval fit without asking for card numbers or pretending to perform a bureau check. We are not a bank, lender, broker or issuer.
Editor and founder
Ramu Badugu founded and edits CardMasters. He maintains the card catalogue, reviews issuer documents and publishes corrections and dated rule changes. View his public GitHub profile and Peerlist profile. CardMasters does not claim bank affiliation or underwriting authority.
Issuer-first evidence
Fees, reward rates, caps, exclusions, eligibility and devaluations are checked against issuer product pages, key fact statements, MITCs and programme terms. A dated “issuer checked” label means we recorded card-specific primary evidence; it does not guarantee the issuer has not changed a term since that date.
Conservative recommendation math
We value rewards using a liquid or realistically usable redemption route. Merchant-specific accelerators are not stretched across generic spending categories, one-time welcome offers are excluded from recurring annual value, and current annual fees plus GST are deducted.
Better-than-owned threshold
When someone already has cards, a new recommendation must improve the existing wallet rather than merely look attractive on its own. The recommendation system routes each spend category to the best owned card and requires meaningful incremental annual value before suggesting another application.
Affiliate independence
Some application links can earn CardMasters a disclosed commission after approval, activation and campaign conditions. Commission is never an input to ranking. Cards without a paying campaign remain eligible for recommendation, and tracked links fall back safely to issuer pages when unavailable.
Editorial standards
CardMasters is independently edited by founder Ramu Badugu. Every rule change, fee adjustment, and reward cap is manually transcribed from official issuer terms and checked before publication. We do not accept sponsored card rankings or paid reviews.
Corrections and contact
Credit-card terms change frequently. Every card page links to its current evidence where available and displays known devaluations. If you find an error, send the issuer source and affected card through our contact page so we can investigate and correct it.