Listen to this article:

Meta’s decision to invest $900 million for a 20% stake in CRED, while appointing CRED founder Kunal Shah as global head of WhatsApp, has raised two concerns. First, American technology companies are gaining increasing control over India’s fintech sector and the vast financial data generated by Indian consumers. Second, many Indian fintech startups appear more interested in building companies for eventual sale to foreign buyers than in creating long-term Indian-owned digital champions.

The Meta-CRED transaction comes at a time when India’s digital-payments ecosystem is increasingly dominated by platforms linked to US firms. Walmart controls about 72% of PhonePe, Google owns Google Pay, and Meta owns WhatsApp Pay. The proposed CRED investment would further strengthen the control of foreign technology giants in a sector built largely on Indian public digital infrastructure such as Aadhaar, UPI and India Stack.

What makes the Meta-CRED deal particularly sensitive is the nature........

© The Wire