Kunal Shal-led fintech startup Cred has launched ‘Scan and Pay’ under the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform foraying into the wider payments business, to compete with the likes of PhonePe, GooglePay (Gpay), Paytm and government-backed Bhim UPI mobile applications, among others.
Currently valued at $6.4 billion, Cred has launched this feature to allow members on its mobile app to scan any QR code and make payments beyond online merchants to offline merchants.
“Now, members can make UPI payments from their bank accounts linked to the Cred app, by scanning any QR code,” the company said in a statement.
Cred claims to have added a ‘trust layer’ to UPI for any incomplete transactions whereby the user is protected reducing the need to raise a complaint for any partial transaction.
Last year, the Bengaluru based fintech company had launched Cred pay allowing payment features like online merchant payments and bill payments (rent, utility and education bill payments).
Kunal Shah, Founder, Cred said, “The country’s top 1% have set the stage for how India consumes and we believe they deserve an experience that celebrates their contribution. India has been leading digital payments adoption with revolutionary made-in-India products and UPI is delta-4 enabling infrastructure for innovation at scale. The all-new Cred pay experience builds on top of this with privacy-first features, personalisation, and other member exclusives."
Cred's partner brands offering curated rewards to Cred members include Starbucks, Shoppers Stop, Puma, and Chaayos among others.
In August, Cred processed nearly 1.5 crore UPI transactions taking the fourth spot in transaction volume processing payments worth Rs 19,084.30 crore, as per data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
For now, Walmart-backed PhonePe leads the market of UPI transactions with nearly 50% share topping for five consecutive months since April processing 314 crore transactions (volume) worth Rs 5.28 lakh crore (value) in the month of August. It has also been leading the industry metrics in the registered users and merchant coverage too.
PhonePe’s share in volume terms increased to 47.9% and in value terms at 49.25%. In value terms, this was followed by Gpay at 34.6%, Paytm at 10.65%, Cred at 1.77%, government-backed Bhim app at 0.73% and Amazon Pay at 0.59%.
Overall, UPI posted another record high clocking 6.57 billion transactions worth Rs 10.73 trillion.
On a yearly basis, UPI transactions by volume rose 85%, while it was up nearly 68% by value as compared to last year.
With ‘Scan and Pay’, Cred additionally plans to lure member-users with rewards at partner merchants, provide a feature to protect users’ identity by creating an alias UPI ID to mask the phone number and other personal details, and allow customized design and accessories on the scanner page by redeeming Cred coins.
Presently, over nine million individuals (up from 7.5 million in 2021) are part of Cred and is accessible to anyone with a credit score of more than 750.
Founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur and angel investor Kunal Shah, Cred started as an credit card bill payment app that lets users making timely payments to be rewarded in the form of “Cred” coins, which can be redeemed across its many partner businesses.
Over the past year, Cred has been exploring new avenues to monetize its business diversifying into lending, direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketplace and P2P lending via Cred Mint.
Cred has also been acquisitive. In October 2021, Mint reported that it had acquired liquor delivery startup HipBar Pvt Ltd to enter wallet payments business. Later in December, Cred acquired corporate expense management platform Happay.
Topping the list of startups in the LinkedIn’s 2022 list, Cred gained prominence with its lucrative cash back offers, travel perks and rewards it gives to its members for using credit cards prudently.
Cred, part of Dreamplug Technologies Pvt Ltd, achieved the unicorn status in April 2021 and is backed by marquee investors such as Singaporean wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global, FalconEdge, Sofina Ventures, Insight Partners, Coatue and Dragoneer among others.
In June, it raised its latest funding round of Series F to raise $140 million at $6.4 billion valuation, up by more than 60% from $4.1 billion valuation as part of Series E round raised in October 2021.
Cred’s loss widened to Rs 524 crore for FY21 from Rs 360 crore in the previous year. While its revenues jumped 170x to Rs 88.6 crore in FY21. The financial details for FY22 could not be ascertained.
