By Kavita Mistry 
The Bengaluru-based fintech player made news by unveiling CRED unveiled Sovereign, an invite-only society for India’s elite, on September 15.
CRED Launching Lifestyle-focused 18-Karat Gold Credit Card
During this, the company has featured a bespoke 18-karat gold credit card with guilloché engraving.
Besides this, the financial services provider has also launched the CRED IndusInd Bank RuPay Credit Card.
This is basically a lifestyle-focused card which offers 5 percent rewards on all e-commerce transactions and 1 percent on offline and UPI spends via CRED Scan and Pay.
Considering the country’s policy, only banks can issue credit cards, that is why the the company has come with this partnership with IndusInd Bank.
In this partnership, CRED will take care of the marketing and sales in a typical co-branded card partnership.
With this card, the user will allow redemption across more than 500 CRED Pay merchants, 2,000 products on CRED Store, flights (powered by the ixigo platform), and over 8 lakh hotels (by Expedia) bookings.
When you use this credit card, it’s every reward point earned is equivalent to one rupee, with instant application at checkout.
The card was designed to address a fundamental gap in the market: the lack of freedom in rewards, said Kunal Shah, the founder of CRED during the launch.
Its not new as most other e-commerce and payment firms also have co-branded cards from Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, PhonePe, and Paytm, among others.
Freedom For Consumers
Moving ahead, Shah said, “We found that there was a gap of freedom. All the cards were going in the direction of saying, ‘Work with this merchant, work with that merchant.’ But consumers want freedom. This card is about rewards that follow taste, not terms.”
Further added that this shift in consumer behavior has made flexibility crucia, 60-65 percent of all spending on cards is already moving to e-commerce, up from 25-30 percent just a few years ago.
“The new generation of creditworthy customers want to explore a wide range of brands, not be tied to a few forced loyalties,” Shah said.
Coming to this card, it comes with zero joining fees and a two-minute digital onboarding process.
Moving ahead, this product is positioned to capture India’s fast-growing segment of affluent and digital-first consumers, according to IndusInd Bank.
Countries prominent angel investor, Shah, felt upbeat regarding the prospects of the new products, especially the Sovereign Gold Card,
When it comes to Cred, it was initially launched as a credit card bill payment platform, is the sixth largest UPI app.
Now, the firm has turned into a diversified payments fintech with multiple financial services offerings.