HSBC Live+ Credit Card vs Cashback SBI Card

What the numbers don't show

HSBC Live+ is a capped 10% card for everyday categories; SBI Cashback is a capped 5% card for online. HSBC (revamped 26 July 2026, per its product page) pays 10% on dining, food delivery, groceries, shopping and utilities up to ₹1,200 a month in total, and 1.5% unlimited elsewhere. SBI pays 5% on online spends up to ₹2,000 a month and 1% offline, and excludes utilities.

Worked example: ₹12,000 a month on dining, groceries and bills. HSBC: 10% = ₹1,200 a month, exactly its cap, ₹14,400 a year (fee ₹999, waived at ₹2 lakh spend, which ₹12,000 a month alone does not reach: ₹1.44 lakh a year, so count the fee unless you spend more on the card). SBI: only the online part earns 5%, offline groceries/dining earn 1%, and utility bills earn nothing, so at most ₹600 a month even if everything were ordered online (and ₹120 if none is). HSBC's cap is reached at ₹12,000 a month of eligible spend, after which extra spend earns the 1.5% base.

HSBC removed Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra from the 10% tier: they earn 1.5% from 26 July 2026 (HSBC lists a 10% Myntra cashback among its welcome gifts until 31 October 2026; confirm what applies afterwards). Heavy marketplace shoppers should look at SBI Cashback instead (5% on Amazon and Flipkart up to the ₹2,000 cap). HSBC also lists 2 domestic lounge visits and 1 international visit a year (one domestic visit per six months), and a 1.99% foreign-currency markup; international spends earn no rewards on this card.

Where SBI catches up. HSBC's 10% sits in one pool of ₹1,200 a month shared by dining, food delivery, groceries, shopping and utilities, so once you spend more than ₹12,000 a month in those categories the extra earns only the 1.5% base. SBI's ceiling is higher: ₹2,000 a month of online cashback plus ₹2,000 offline. If all of your spend is online and in HSBC's eligible categories, HSBC earns ₹1,200 + 1.5% of everything above ₹12,000 against SBI's 5%, and SBI pulls ahead at about ₹29,000 a month of such spend (1,200 + 0.015(X − 12,000) = 0.05X gives X ≈ ₹29,100). At ₹40,000 a month all online, that is ₹1,620 on HSBC against ₹2,000 on SBI, ₹4,560 a year in SBI's favour. The two profiles in the table where HSBC leads by a wide margin are the ones with offline groceries, dining and bills, where SBI pays 1% or nothing.

Fees, benefits and eligibility. Both charge ₹999 a year and waive it at ₹2 lakh of annual spend (HSBC counts primary and add-on spend together; SBI's KFS waives on spend in the preceding year), so the fee does not separate them for anyone who spends ₹17,000 a month or more. HSBC adds two domestic lounge visits (one per six months) and one international visit a year, and a welcome package on its product page (₹1,000 cashback for app login and spend within 30 days, and vouchers) that our net values leave out, as they do for every card; SBI lists none we could confirm. HSBC states a ₹6 lakh a year income for salaried applicants; we could not confirm SBI's eligibility figures in a document we read, so check both on the issuers' pages before applying.

Figures from the issuers' own T&C/MITC as recorded on each card page (checked 30 Oct 2026); sources are listed on HSBC Live+ Credit Card and Cashback SBI Card. Estimates, not offers: terms change, so confirm with the issuer.