Folks,
Just wanted to share my experience of getting EPM card approved on 9th May 2025. May be there are many experiences on forum, this might be a little different. I hold ICICI credit cards with 7.9L credit limit for the past 4 years or so. I had Amazon Pay, Expressions, Emeralde PVC, Sapphiro (All Paid Cards). I don't have any Savings account with ICICI, but had high value Prudential and Lombard Insurances covered with them. I am from Tier 2 City and for all banking needs I have to educate BM or RM with the information I get from here. So it's a quite lengthy process for me in all cases.
I have shown the method to get approvals from multiple threads on TF.
Attempt 1:
After EPM launch in 2023, In July 2024 luckily the ICICI BM came to my office to meet me regarding some banking relationship and discussed about EPM. Those days when Eligibility was 30L Annual ITR or 2.5-3L Net Salary Credit & PPOP above 50K was the eligibility criteria along with some high TRV with bank.
Within a 3 days he got approval from RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head and came to me saying all approvals are done and applied for the EPM using old ICICI CC application procedure.
After 15 days of this also, there was no approval and generation. Got update from BM that Credit Team has not approved the card even on getting approvals from RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head. (Reason: Annual Income short by 40K ). I was actually not waiting or not interested to get it, but just tried as I love Metal cards.
Attempt 2:
Meanwhile in December 2024 I got Times Black Card (As I love metal cards) and EPM was not approved. In Feb 2025 BM came again saying that he got some new channel where he can get approvals and he will pakka deliver the card this time. I was like don't want to waste the CIBIL hit and said it won't happen with previous experience and told him we will try after filing this year annual ITR, but he was very confident and he applied again. This time application was in system some (iLens). He got all the approvals again RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head as the old approvals will be valid till 3 months only. This was the time iShop launched and I wanted to max out the benefits and accepted his offer again. Tentative Limit shown as 18,00,000 also.
To my shock there was no movement in application and there was no Rejection and approval either. Later on we got a contact within family (he got EPM with Private Banking relationship) and approached a Private Banking ZH with all the issues of application. Later on he suggested that not having ICICI bank account is hampering the application and it's not moving as all the criteria, deviation approvals and Prudential, Lombard Insurance relationship considered. While applying 1st time only me and BM checked with RH about savings account and he clearly mentioned account was not mandatory, but this Private Banking Head was mentioning about account. So we left this application as it is, as it has passed 20 days. (2nd CIBIL hit wasted)
Attempt 3:
So now, this man Private Banking head got approvals instead of BM, So in March 2025 we have opened a ICICI Wealth Management account. Later on linked all my Credit Cards, Wealth Account, Prudential & Lombard Insurance, 4 Fastags. He asked us to wait for 1-2 months as there are couple of EPM applications already in the last 6 months for me and let the March 2025 heat to settle as there are tons of applications were queued up due to iShop launch and year end targets. In April 2025 he took all the approvals and asked us to apply by April 2025 ending. He was following up the application personally and we had some holidays, he promised me to deliver the card before my 20day trip but he missed it by 2 days. Card approved on the Journey start date, so Couldn't max it out. In hand experience delayed as I was travelling.
Most of the banks HDFC, Axis or ICICI any bank operating in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities doesn't even talk about these products with their clients. Same happened for me during Axis Magnus, HDFC Infinia, IndusInd Heritage Metal and now with ICICI EPM. I usually feel I should be a consultant to these banks with the knowledge and information I get from TF 😋.
Had some discussions on this with @Nishan11 @theflash @imdjay , Thanks to them. So all in all a tough experience from ICICI to get their flagship CC product.
Chill Moment:
My BM Celebrated this in his branch by giving sweets to his employees, as this was first card issued in the town 😂😂, because he tried and dropped a lot of mails and calls to get me this card. In the Era of stupid RM's and BM's he was supportive with no nonsense stuff.
Just wanted to share my experience of getting EPM card approved on 9th May 2025. May be there are many experiences on forum, this might be a little different. I hold ICICI credit cards with 7.9L credit limit for the past 4 years or so. I had Amazon Pay, Expressions, Emeralde PVC, Sapphiro (All Paid Cards). I don't have any Savings account with ICICI, but had high value Prudential and Lombard Insurances covered with them. I am from Tier 2 City and for all banking needs I have to educate BM or RM with the information I get from here. So it's a quite lengthy process for me in all cases.
I have shown the method to get approvals from multiple threads on TF.
Attempt 1:
After EPM launch in 2023, In July 2024 luckily the ICICI BM came to my office to meet me regarding some banking relationship and discussed about EPM. Those days when Eligibility was 30L Annual ITR or 2.5-3L Net Salary Credit & PPOP above 50K was the eligibility criteria along with some high TRV with bank.
Within a 3 days he got approval from RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head and came to me saying all approvals are done and applied for the EPM using old ICICI CC application procedure.
After 15 days of this also, there was no approval and generation. Got update from BM that Credit Team has not approved the card even on getting approvals from RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head. (Reason: Annual Income short by 40K ). I was actually not waiting or not interested to get it, but just tried as I love Metal cards.
Attempt 2:
Meanwhile in December 2024 I got Times Black Card (As I love metal cards) and EPM was not approved. In Feb 2025 BM came again saying that he got some new channel where he can get approvals and he will pakka deliver the card this time. I was like don't want to waste the CIBIL hit and said it won't happen with previous experience and told him we will try after filing this year annual ITR, but he was very confident and he applied again. This time application was in system some (iLens). He got all the approvals again RH -> ZH -> Group Head -> Product Head as the old approvals will be valid till 3 months only. This was the time iShop launched and I wanted to max out the benefits and accepted his offer again. Tentative Limit shown as 18,00,000 also.
To my shock there was no movement in application and there was no Rejection and approval either. Later on we got a contact within family (he got EPM with Private Banking relationship) and approached a Private Banking ZH with all the issues of application. Later on he suggested that not having ICICI bank account is hampering the application and it's not moving as all the criteria, deviation approvals and Prudential, Lombard Insurance relationship considered. While applying 1st time only me and BM checked with RH about savings account and he clearly mentioned account was not mandatory, but this Private Banking Head was mentioning about account. So we left this application as it is, as it has passed 20 days. (2nd CIBIL hit wasted)
Attempt 3:
So now, this man Private Banking head got approvals instead of BM, So in March 2025 we have opened a ICICI Wealth Management account. Later on linked all my Credit Cards, Wealth Account, Prudential & Lombard Insurance, 4 Fastags. He asked us to wait for 1-2 months as there are couple of EPM applications already in the last 6 months for me and let the March 2025 heat to settle as there are tons of applications were queued up due to iShop launch and year end targets. In April 2025 he took all the approvals and asked us to apply by April 2025 ending. He was following up the application personally and we had some holidays, he promised me to deliver the card before my 20day trip but he missed it by 2 days. Card approved on the Journey start date, so Couldn't max it out. In hand experience delayed as I was travelling.
Most of the banks HDFC, Axis or ICICI any bank operating in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities doesn't even talk about these products with their clients. Same happened for me during Axis Magnus, HDFC Infinia, IndusInd Heritage Metal and now with ICICI EPM. I usually feel I should be a consultant to these banks with the knowledge and information I get from TF 😋.
Had some discussions on this with @Nishan11 @theflash @imdjay , Thanks to them. So all in all a tough experience from ICICI to get their flagship CC product.
Chill Moment:
My BM Celebrated this in his branch by giving sweets to his employees, as this was first card issued in the town 😂😂, because he tried and dropped a lot of mails and calls to get me this card. In the Era of stupid RM's and BM's he was supportive with no nonsense stuff.
