Companies are partnering issuers to scale the rollout of co-branded RuPay cards, building portfolios that span both secured and unsecured offerings.
A key driver is the ability to link RuPay cards to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), allowing small-ticket debit spends to shift to credit. Combined with a native RuPay-UPI stack, this is helping companies deliver a more seamless, in-app payments experience.
In 2025 alone, fintech firms such as Cred, super.money, PhonePe, and Google Pay, among others, announced co-branded partnerships with issuers.
“Earlier, typical user behaviour was to choose convenience for low-value payments via UPI. For higher-value transactions, users optimised for rewards, so cards were preferred. These worlds have now converged with the UPI-RuPay linkage,” said Akshay Aedula, head of product and growth at Cred.
The shift is already visible in the numbers.
Aedula said 20 per cent of scan-and-pay transactions on the Cred app are now routed through RuPay credit cards. The push also comes as fintechs tap new-to-credit (NTC) users through secured cards, offering a UPI-linked credit experience. Existing Mastercard and Visa cards cannot be integrated with UPI.
“There are existing credit card users who want a UPI-enabled card because their current cards are not linkable to UPI. Then there is the NTC cohort, where secured cards have taken off as the first card of choice. People use RuPay cards for UPI-related use cases and other cards for different purchases,” said Prakash Sikaria, chief executive officer of super.money. Sikaria added that the company is issuing more than 75,000 cards a month.
Industry estimates peg RuPay credit card spends at 15–20 per cent of overall category spends. Secured credit cards are backed by a user’s cash deposit, which acts as collateral and determines the credit limit.
The ability to process small-ticket spends via UPI QR codes is driving higher volumes of credit card transactions. Even if total transaction values are lower, the increased frequency is pushing fintechs to scale up in this segment.
Third-party application providers, in particular, now sit on a large base of daily transacting users, thanks to the widespread adoption of UPI and credit instruments.
The open question is whether existing cardholders will make RuPay their primary card, even as the experience becomes more native. “If users shift to RuPay as their primary card, overall card utilisation rises because nearly every purchase can move to credit. Other cards may still be used for larger spends such as travel or high-value shopping,” Sikaria said.
Higher credit usage also means all players in the chain — issuers and fintechs — get a share of interchange income, unlike regular UPI transactions, which currently carry no merchant discount rate.
Aedula said Cred is also tokenising the cards it issues. “As we issue these cards, we’re tokenising them simultaneously. The card becomes instantly available across multiple online merchants. We’re seeing spends pick up much faster; otherwise, card usage typically builds over months,” he said.
A single tokenised card on a device can be used across multiple merchants connected to a fintech platform or payment aggregator. Transaction volumes are expected to rise further as device tokenisation expands, making card tokens effectively interoperable across platforms.
Earlier, a card tokenised on one platform — say, a food delivery app — could not be used on an e-commerce site under the card-on-file model, as tokens were stored separately by each entity.
Tokens are tied to a single device, allowing only authorised access and reducing the risk of misuse or large-scale data leaks. They also speed up checkouts, removing the need to enter card details repeatedly — a small tweak that quietly nudges users to spend more and abandon carts less often.
Source link
#RuPay #tailwind #drives #fintech #push #cobranded #credit #cards #UPI
