CRED launched CRED Mint (peer-to-peer), a peer-to-peer lending product for its members. This is the latest attempt by the $2.2 billion Indian startup unicorn to monetize its 7.5 million users.
CRED, a fintech platform, was founded by Kunal Shah, a serial entrepreneur. It started as a credit card repayment platform that rewards users for paying their bills. However, it has added products like rent payments to its offering as it strives to be a full-fledged financial service provider.
CRED Mint is being launched in partnership with Liquiloans – a registered RBI P2P non-banking financial company (NBFC) that Shah has been an early investor.
CRED Cash, a short-term loan product, is also offered by CRED. CRED, a Bengaluru-based startup, claims it is the country’s most trusted fintech lender with a loan portfolio of more than Rs 2,000 crore.
“Because of our high-trust community, we have NPAs of less than one percent. So we now have the confidence to launch the first community product. There is a lot of idle money sitting in people’s accounts which is earning less than the inflation rate. They are effectively losing money,” Kunal Shah told Moneycontrol in an interview.
Mint promises to offer its members returns up to 9 percent per year. Mint members can borrow or lend between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 10 lakh in less than two minutes. They can also request withdrawals in one click with no penalty. Lenders will also earn interest for the time they invested.
Although traditional P2P lending platforms have been relatively successful, they are often scrutinized hard because they target borrowers with low incomes and poor credit histories. Shah wants to change this by allowing P2P lending for those with credit scores of more than 750 – India’s most creditworthy citizens.
Indeed, this will change the way small borrowers seek loans from traditional banks. Instead of struggling with required paper works, now borrowers with good credit ratings can turn towards CRED Mint to avoid all hassle. This is being seen as another move by another fintech startup to give traditional financial institutions a run for their money!
Shah’s optimism is partly based on the positive response he received from CRED employees who have been using the product. He stated that 70-80 percent have already invested in the product and will continue to do so every month.
CRED, a two-and-a-half-year-old startup from India, is one of the fastest-growing startups in India. In less than 2 years it achieved unicorn status, despite having a very low revenue figure. It is often ridiculed for its increasing valuation, despite its uncertain revenue and profitability. However, CRED is not the only one in this group.
It partnered with IDFC First Bank in late last year to provide short-term loans. This was its first chance at making money and it was valued at nearly a billion dollars.
CRED claims that its 7.5 million users represent 35 percent of premium cardholders in India, and that it processes 25% of Indian credit card bill payments.
It raised $215 million earlier this year from investors like Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital. It recently raised $215million at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation. This makes it one of the fastest privately-held startups to reach a unicorn. In October 2013, it was worth $800 million.
The startup ecosystem has also been abuzz with news that Shah is already raising his next round of funding, at a valuation of over $4 billion. Two people close to Shah reported that he was in San Francisco for the past month and had conversations with Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley heavyweight who has invested in Coinbase, Instacart, and Airbnb.
