CRED Beefs Up Its Credit Game To Further Super App Ambitions

In a bid to fortify its credit offerings, fintech giant Cred announced the launch of multiple credit-related offerings for its users under a new suite ‘Svalbard’. 

In a statement, the Bengaluru-based startup said that the suite of products will allow its users to get credit against mutual funds through CRED Cash+, improve their credit score via CRED Credit Score, and manage multiple physical credit cards through their Card Management offering.

“With Svalbard, we’re transforming credit into a force for financial progress. In a country where most find debt stressful, we’re recognising and rewarding responsible behavior, turning credit from a source of anxiety into a growth accelerant,” CRED founder and CEO Kunal Shah said in a statement. 

Here’s what the tech stack under Svalbard looks like:

CRED Cash+

The startup said that its credit against mutual funds offering Cash+ gives users the ability to get “instant liquidity without liquidation”. Under this, the startup bundles a user’s mutual fund portfolio to enable instant credit lines with “zero paperwork.”

The startup claims that the offering opens up credit lines with personal loan rates 8.99% to 12% lower than the market. Further, it enables multiple withdrawals against pledged assets without repeated documentation, giving users structured EMI options and a penalty-free early repayment flexibility. 

Incumbents in the loans against mutual fund segment include Jio Financial Services, BharatPe, smallcase, Bajaj Finserv among others. 

CRED Credit Score

Under this service, CRED claims that it delivers users personalised predictions rather than generic averages by analysing the credit scores for users and how the choices they make will impact their credit score. It said that the offering is powered by advanced machine learning models, developed in-house by mapping “millions of actions against potential score changes”. 

It claims that its ML model helps in strategically planning credit decisions and avoid taking missteps which might “take years to rebuild from”. Further, the offering delivers predictions over a user’s credit decision by determining and presenting how their decision will impact their credit ratings. 

“The credit score is a silent verdict on every financial decision one has ever made. CRED is transforming this one-sided monologue into a dynamic conversation – one that consumers control – turning credit monitoring from an annual checkpoint into a constant companion for financial progress,” the unicorn said. 

Card Management

The startup aims to simplify user’s hassle of utilising multiple credit cards by consolidating multiple statements into a single number. This helps the user better map their future EMI obligations by tracking real-time credit.

It claims that the new card management platform analyses spending patterns across statements to provide trend insights, account for EMIs and recurring obligations, among others.

In a separate development, the startup is reportedly tweaking its peer-to-peer investment platform Cred Mint to accommodate recent regulatory changes made by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Speaking with ET, Shah said that the company’s P2P lending offering, for which CRED has partnered with Liquiloans, has seen a slow down post the change in regulations. 

The RBI, in August last year, tightened the norms to curb certain practices adopted by NBFC-P2P platforms such as violation of the prescribed funds transfer mechanism, promoting P2P lending as an investment product with features like tenure linked assured minimum returns, among others.