CRED After Kunal Shah: Can The ‘Walled Garden’ Business Model Pay For Itself?

CRED uses credit card bill payments to bring 17 Mn-plus members into its app, then earns by distributing loans and other financial products to this user base

Lending is now its main revenue engine, while Garage, Money, Kuvera and Store aim to expand how much each member does on the platform

CRED has narrowed its operating loss and reported its first profitable quarter, but it still needs to turn more payment users into customers across lending, insurance and wealth

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For the first five years of CRED’s existence, the question on everyone’s minds was: how will CRED even make money. In 2023, we started seeing the first signs of how the fintech giant was going to monetise, and that started clearing the murkiness around CRED’s future.

What stumped many in the early days — and this could simply be called a misreading — was the CRED’s go-to-market strategy and customer profile was so differentiated from the likes of Paytm or PhonePe, which targeted mass fintech consumers. But CRED chose to go after a slice of the market that was harder to reach, but could prove more profitable in the long run.

CRED’s focus was on the cream of the Indian financial services consumer base. The credit card holders who routinely spent heavily through their cards but paid them back on time, and those who aspired for a more sophisticated lifestyle, and earning their long-term trust takes its time.

This has essentially been the story of CRED’s journey so far. And in the past few fiscal years (with revenue disclosed till FY25) we know that this long road has paid off to some extent. In fact, CRED has even diluted its earlier premise of only catering to the most creditworthy Indians and their aspirations.

Everything CRED has launched since it stepped out of its original credit card payments segment can be linked to aspiration. But the revenue build up has been slow as per what we know.

The startup closed FY25 with INR 2,735 Cr in operating revenue after operating revenue jumped 71% to INR 2,397 Cr in FY24. Operating loss declined 41% to INR 609 Cr in FY24, but as of now, CRED has not disclosed its bottom line for FY25.

The startup closed FY25 with INR 2,735 Cr in operating revenue after operating revenue jumped 71% to INR 2,397 Cr in FY24. Operating loss declined 41% to INR 609 Cr in FY24, but as of now, CRED has not disclosed its bottom line for FY25.

After raising $900 Mn from Meta in June 2026, CRED is now valued at $4.5 Bn. Founder and former CEO Kunal Shah stepped away from the company amid this transaction and has moved to lead WhatsApp globally, while Miten Sampat has taken over as interim CEO. The deal has put the focus back on CRED’s brand, its members and the long-term sustainability of the business built around them.

Despite the massive funding, CRED’s revenue has not come out in public. That remains a major uncertainty  for those looking at this company. What we do know is where the industry is headed, because the likes of Paytm, MobiKwik, PhonePe and others have disclosed their numbers to a large........

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