CRED in 2021 – Are CRED Coins really worth it?

By | April 26, 2021
CRED in 2021

The Past

It’s been more than 2 years since CRED – the app that gives you rewards for paying credit card bills was launched.

When CRED App was initially onboarding customers, there were jaw dropping rewards and offers. I managed to save well over Rs.25,000 in a year and I’ve seen bunch of people who saved few lakhs as well – those who had that level of spends.

The Pandemic

However things were slowing down lately maybe due to the pandemic and we hardly see any worthy redemption options (via coins alone) on CRED yet, especially in the last 1 Year or so.

But if you love travel, you could still grab very good hotel stay offers that they put out every now and then. These new type of offers are “discounted” offers where in you could book a hotel for 20% less or so by burning CRED coins.

The Present

But then not everyone is travelling lately. So, a lot of you would have been waiting for the right time to burn all those unused bread coins in 2021. And the time has come now!

You can now redeem your CRED coins to donate Oxygen to hospitals and healthcare non-profit organization.

All you’ve to do is:

  1. Open the CRED app (or download if you don’t use already)
  2. Scroll down to see an option like below (either in “Home” page or in “Club” Page)
  3. Tap and donate as much as you wish.
CRED App - Home
CRED App - Redemption

Just incase if you’re not aware, this is not the first time CRED does this. Every few months once they come up with such redemptions and its always pretty good to redeem them.

Here are some of the past CRED missions that I redeemed CRED coins for:

CRED App - cred missions - masks
CRED App - cred missions - save lives
CRED App - cred missions - food
CRED App - cred missions - trees

Final Thoughts

While CRED coins may not reward you monetarily in 2021 as much it did in the past, it may carry good Karma back to your home. And let’s hope that acts as a shield to prevent the infection or just cure the infection fast, just in-case if you happen to contract the virus.

So coming back to the question, are CRED coins really worth it in 2021? the answer depends on one’s own perspective.

If you look at only rewards, then answer is “No” (for now, for most).

But I would say “Yes” – just for the presence of these credmissions, as it adds good value to the world.

And you get the convenience to pay all credit card bills in one place, pay rent online through CRED Rent Pay and even more.

Have you redeemed your CRED coins for CRED missions? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Author: Siddharth

Helping Indians to choose right credit cards, pick right offers and enjoy luxury vacations for less. Day & night exploring the spiritual reality of our human existence.

80 thoughts on “CRED in 2021 – Are CRED Coins really worth it?

  1. Satish Kumar Agarwal

    Dear Siddharth

    I myself got Covid 19 positive on 13th of this month & got discharged from hospital this evening.

    Really love the unique way Cred cares for the society not only this time, but during regular monthly intervals or so it gives chance to us to give back to the humankind by burning cred coins. Hats off to them.

    Offcourse we shouldn’t compare the rewards that used to come with a Signature kind of launch 2 years ago, bcoz there must have been proper marketing budget for the launch. Slowly but surely every business has to try to be profitable.

    But once and all Cred management thoughts n plans are truly aspirational & exceptional.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Well said Satish. Many don’t realize that those rewards are more of an acquisition cost.

      Glad to see you back. Hope you’re doing better now?
      Please do share about your Covid-19 experience – the symptoms, treatment, insurance claim if any, etc.

      Reply
      1. DIVYADEEP ARORA

        Inspired by this Article, I immediately donated oxygen using my cred coins.
        10,000 litres. I guess I cannot share the screen shot here.

        Reply
    2. Shimul

      I myself got Covid 19 positive on 15th of April. Got fever on 10 April. Only fever no other symptoms of any kind.
      Treatment: Only Paracetamol 650. Vitamin tablet, vitamin C, protein diet and home rest.

      Reply
    3. Amit Joshi

      Dear Siddharth,

      Yup this is a good initiative and really needed at this current situation.

      Donated 1lac lt of oxygen.

      Reply
  2. Satish Kumar Agarwal

    Sure will share within a day or two in detail as much as possible so that it may help this blog readers in a positive way.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Great, looking forward. Wishes for a speedy recovery.

      Reply
  3. Varun

    It’s a data stealing middle-man that gives you crumbs off the table after mining your credit card usage. Steer clear of them, and other Kunal Shah-type “entrepreneurs”.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      You don’t need to allow them to access your statement to use the app though. This solves the Privacy issues for most.

      Reply
      1. Amit

        No, it doesnt solve the privacy issues. The very fundamental feature of paying credit bills on Cred app is reliant upon reading the SMS on your mobile. The app keeps reading all the SMSs of your mobile. Without parting this critical data on your mobile, the app may not be of much of use. And to add to Varun’s data-stealing comment, net net, one parts with very valuable information (financial, personal or otherwise) with cred to get nothing in return. These days, many apps, such as Amazon, Phonepe etc., already provide features to pay all the credit card bills in one place.

        Reply
        1. ka

          I am not clear as to how “the feature of paying credit bills on Cred app is reliant upon reading the SMS on your mobile”. Can you please elaborate. Am I missing something!?

          On the other hand, I will tell you how I pay credit card bills on cred:
          1. I touch the “cards” tab at the bottom
          2. scroll to the desired card and enter the amount that I will to and pay and thereafter, pay such amount via the desired source.

          In the above process, I believe that the cred app has not read any of my sms and yet, I have managed to pay my credit card bill on cred app.

          Reply
    2. John Paul

      Have you gone through HDFC’c credit card application form? There’s a clause in it which enables HDFC to share your credit card usage details. with Walmart India Pvt. Ltd. You lose privacy the moment you start using a credit card.
      I’m now auto forwarding all my credit card statements to a separate mail id created solely for sharing with Cred. Once you share your statement with Cred it acts a good expense tracker and card reminder.

      Reply
      1. Jay

        Hi John, I was thinking to use the same trick of different email id for CRED. Do we need to forward all the credit card transaction emails to separate email id or only statement emails are sufficient?

        Reply
    3. Ravi

      I agree, I came across a scenario, where CRED has billing data of credits not added to the app.

      I have uninstalled the app for more than 6months, and during this period I got a new credit card, and few months ago, when I saw oxygen donation using cred coins, I installed the app to donate all my cred coins. To my surprise, I saw my new credit card added to cred, along with its bill due for that month. I immediately wanted to delete all my data from CRED, and the scary part is you can’t. There is no option to delete a credit card , all you can do is archive it, it stays there for ever. same goes with your account. CRED will never delete user info. When contacted support all they say is they need this data for auditing purpose, and there was no answer on how long will they store user data. when asked about deactivating my account. I was asked just to uninstall it.

      Reply
  4. Sanjay Agarwql

    I used all. My crwd coins acxumulated over 2 years to oxygen cause

    Reply
  5. Prashant Gupta

    I have redeemed coins for many items. There are really good things to buy from time to time sometimes at 70% discount which is a steal. They are running good deals in during IPL too. But those days are gone when everything was available purely on cred coins redemption.

    Reply
      1. Prashant Gupta

        Recently I have burned coins on cocktail mixers, Swami tonics, eatables-postcard snacks etc, there are good deals on urban bed, boltt etc. killer pricing. Got boltt Bluetooth headphones for only 699. Memory pillow for only Rs250. MRP is 2699. U need to check out from time to time.

        Reply
      2. ka

        CRED.club is now a Diners Club partner for 10x rewards.

        Reply
  6. deva

    contributed 50k litres of oxygen through cred…thanks Dear Sid..& Cred

    Reply
  7. Captain Bishuddha Bharatiya

    Just redeemed 10 lakhs points for this great cause. Feeling good.

    Reply
  8. Rupesh

    1. Is Milaap giving us an 80G certificate for redeeming Cred Coins?
    2. Is Milaap giving Cred an 80G certificate for redeeming our Cred Coins?

    Reply
      1. Rupesh

        2. Doesn’t it mean that Cred is doing CSR for tax-saving purposes (why do they need it, they are already in huge losses Y0Y) by donating money equivalent to our Cred Coins, and marketing it as a good cause for brand building. One bird two kill?

        Reply
    1. Ravi K

      Only possible if CRED has a RBI approved wallet and 1 CRED coins equals 1 INR.
      Guess this ain’t gonna happen. Kunal Shah have had his time with a wallet.
      I would like to know your views regarding CRED’s future. As they are already into lending, I think they might bring their own credit cards.

      Reply
  9. Priyank Jain

    Thanks for sharing, dusted 1 lac lt Oxygen, have been thinking of a meaningful use of Credit going for a while.

    Reply
  10. Abhi

    Last I was using coins to get my experian and crif scores, now they stopped deducting coins even for that. Beyond the 1K x5 scratchcards which usually give cashback of Rs5 these days, there’s not much reward. I make most of my credit card payments through mobikwik.

    Reply
  11. Animesh

    Of all the unicorn startups that I have researched since 2018, CRED has the most bizarre business model. Its stakeholders are most likely never going to see returns on their investment.

    Reply
    1. JJ

      It will take some time for people to realize that Cred have the top 10% credit card users on its platform.

      Reply
      1. Namann

        And.. what exactly will they do with these top credit card users? Cred is trying to be a lending platform when there are literally hundreds of fintech companies and banks who are already into lending. And these affluent users are the last people who would need that extra line of credit. Cred is also trying to be an ecommerce platform when older “unicorn” etailers like ShopClues had to shut down, after being unable to compete with Amazon and Flipkart’s established presence and deep pockets. The only possible exit route that makes business sense would be to become an NBFC that issues co-branded credit cards to its users based on their spending habits. I don’t see them headed in that direction, but who knows.

        Reply
  12. RAGIB MD IQBAL

    I am new to CRED and joined only a few months back. Not having enough coins as on today. But will contribute after paying my bills (if i get the opportunity that time) and will share this information with all of my CRED friends so that they can also help in this noble cause.

    Thanks for sharing this information.

    Reply
  13. Kaushik Bhatt

    is this really happening or behind the scene its just a way to make ppl spend their Cred coins who have been pilling up the stock? Has anyone checked how CC is converted to hand over to Milaap to how Milaap is actually helping ppl in need. Nowadays its easy to spread all this and ppl just throw money without caring if its reaching the required/needy ppl.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      I audit government sector, many of my audits I have found people donating generously and which is never utilised for the purpose which it is collected for and for my dismay I have found they wouldn’t have utilised any money at all and it stays in suspense.

      I don’t believe they would donate the same amount of what they actually claim to do so.

      My personal view is if anyone of you wanting to do something good for the society do it directly and never give your help through a 3rd party.

      Reply
    2. Hiteshh

      Yap. It’s all good to donate but does it reach the needy…one can always say once you surrender your donations or cred coins it should be in good faith. How about showing some actual accounts on their and milaap website or app?

      Reply
  14. Gagan

    I had no use of my Cred coins.

    Thanks to this opportunity, I burnt all my Cred coins and tried to give back a bit to the community.

    Reply
  15. PointRedeemer

    I’ve be hoarding millions of CRED coins over the last two years thinking that it could be utilised to redeem against a killer product or voucher. But as they expanded, the quality of the rewards went downhill. Their jackpots are such a scam. Most of the time you just get a discount code and that’s it. I got 7-7-7 recently for the Mi 11X Pro jackpot and the system didn’t trigger a win (Triple 7 is the winning sequence for most jackpots.) Their discounted merchandise is a joke. I understand that they are burning cash in the name of customer acquisition but offer rewards that are of real value even it’s minimal like the reward rate of many credit cards in the country.

    I now see CRED as an app that centralises my credit card payments, business payments and rent payments. In short, it is a niche payments app and the rewards are just a bonus but of no real value. I hope similar apps show up in the market which would make this space more exciting and competitive. Similar to the PayTM vs PhonePe vs GPay story.

    So then finally, I donated all my coins for tens of truckloads of oxygen. (Standard Oxygen Tankers carry about 15000 litres of medical oxygen)

    At the end of the day, I hope these coins have a reasonable impact to the oxygen crisis that has gripped the nation.

    Reply
    1. Hitesh Jain

      Perfect! Well expressed. The rewards real values are completely gone downhill!

      Reply
  16. Sandeep singh

    Donated all my points. Cred offers have been useless from quite sometime given the data they are harnessing from me;)

    Reply
  17. Bhautik

    I think cred has played double-dip (debit card points + cred coins) as we do with the credit card company.
    Now cred worth is near to 1 billion, therefore they need to do CSR.
    so, donating oxygen is CSR for them, and for the customer is a burning of the coin.

    Reply
    1. Shreyansh Soni

      Yes CSR is applicable to them but it is calculated as 2% of net profit and they are not profitable yet. So no CSR responsibility for them

      Reply
  18. AG

    Sadly, it’s a growth-hacking scam by a creative team in the time of a pandemic. People have done the math on coins to litres conversion, and there’s no way it adds up. Gives people a way to dispose off otherwise useless cred coins, and makes you feel good that you’re doing your bit. But there’s no transparency into where any money (if at all) is actually going. And people are asking questions on how it may actually dissuade some user with good intentions from actually making a legitimate donation to something like “Mission Oxygen” (~ on ketto), or GiveIndia, after they get the feel good dopamine kick of burning cred coins and seeing some arbitrary oxygen donation number. It’s a cheap marketing tactic from a company i used to admire. #DeleteCRED for #DisasterCapitalism

    Reply
  19. Shreyas Singh

    So many people had this confusion,
    let me put some maths.
    But before that I want to say , I myself donated 50,000 L of oxygen.
    Felt great to do that.
    Went on to post it on Insta and WhatsApp status.
    Then the funny part came, I read the details to realise, CRED IS NOT DONATING OXYGEN CYLINDER
    They will be giving OXYGEN CONCENTRATORS.
    How about some simple calculations now ?
    They have a target of 1 Billion L of oxygen. Lets say they target it in 6 months
    So, my 50,000 L of oxygen goes in 6 months.
    This makes it nearly 8,300 L in 1 month
    A normal oxygen concentrator gives 5-10L oxygen per minute.
    Lets say they get one with 7L per minute at a high end price of 70,000 Rs.
    So in a day , this concentrator would give, 7L*60mins*24hrs = 10,080L of oxygen.
    In 6 months it will give 10,000*180 = 1,800,000L of oxygen.
    My contribution is 50,000L .
    ie 50,000/1,800,000 = 0.027 part
    So its worth 0.027*70,000 ( price of concentrator )= 1945Rs.

    So at the end, I burned 5L cred coins for something worth 1945 Rs.
    I cried on such poor maths.
    But anyways, I did donate oxygen.

    What actually happened was a nice advertisement of Cred. I never did before but this time, I posted on Insta and WhatsApp .
    They have nice ways of handling marketing and supporting people.

    Reply
  20. Abraham

    Firstly, no doubt that Cred is supporting a good cause. But as I have noticed lately, Cred is just full of gimmicks. I’m sure 99% of you fell for the image of an “oxygen cylinder”, but you have been scammed, Cred is only providing an oxygen “concentrator”, which is NOT useful for seriously ill patients. It’s definitely better than nothing, but for mild to moderate diseases. On a separate note, I advice anyone purchasing anything on Cred to kindly search the prices for the same product on Google/etc. Almost everything Cred sells these days, are priced higher than Amazon (inspite of burning coins).

    Reply
    1. Nipun

      Anything is better then nothing, Cred have given around Rs.10 crores for the Oxygen either Concentrator as per you which would have helped lakhs of people in mild symptoms to overcome, on my cred burtn of 10.00 lakh points it was clearly acknowledged at 1.00 lakh litres of oxygen.

      Some thing are costly and some are cheap, I purchased a White willow online around 1300 for 799, still you are getting raffles, scratch cards and what not which were never in the past available for atleast credit card bill payments.

      Also the features it is giving for credit card management, anyone like me will pay for to maintain by card details billing, unbilling and what not.

      Reply
  21. Athul

    Please don’t fall for this scam just like all the other scams of Cred. An oxygen concentrator works for 5 years, to producing 1-5L of oxygen per minute if used continuously 24×7. That way one machine can produce 13,14,00,000 litres of oxygen. So I’m sure only when 13.14 lakh people donate 10,000 coins each Cred would buy ONE oxygen concentrator for an NGO. There’s ofcourse no harm in donating Cred Coins, just that, I wish Cred was more transparent in their operation!

    Reply
  22. Monkey Singh

    Also, I don’t think it is economically viable for a company to keep doling out free goodies worth thousands just for paying a credit card bill through IMPS. The existing small ‘wins’ for each payment by itself comes to a substantial amount.

    Reply
  23. Gururajan

    Cred coins are of no utility value for majority of credians. Cred should allow redemption of coins for purchase of household utilities. Orelse redeem coins for cash should be done.

    Reply
  24. Surya

    Their 7-7-7 Jackpot is a sham I believe. Has anyone really won a jackpot here by getting 7-7-7? If yes, please share your experience.

    Reply
    1. Satish Kumar Agarwal

      Dear Surya

      I won the Old Spice jackpot on 25th April worth upto 9500/- products.
      Immediately purchased old spice products collectively worth 9000/- MRP via the link on Cred and its shipped today. I had to pay 60/- as shipping charges.

      Reply
      1. Satish Kumar Agarwal

        Received the jackpot items worth 9000/- today by courier.

        Reply
  25. John Paul the Second

    C**d is not donating oxygen guys, please don’t fall for the marketing scheme. They are donating oxygen concentrators…pretty useless for really sick patients. Just try googling. I feel bad that many of you have fallen prey for the picture of the “oxygen cylinder” (in c**d app).

    Reply
  26. Deepak

    To me this seems to be more of a marketing gimmick. The cost of the Oxygen was never a problem, its supply shortage is the biggest issue and I don’t see how is that being addressed. Not a good time for Cred to be so opportunistic. People are mindlessly being proud of donating oxygen, planting trees, educating girl child and what not through Cred but have Cred they ever published a report on their actual work and impact? Would really like to see that.

    Reply
  27. George Mathews

    Hi,
    Just my personal opinion here.
    The oxygen that CRED has promised to distribute is worth 9 lakh rupees only. The free publicity and awareness building they get is way more. It’s very calculated on their part to go for a misleading initiative like this to use us and milk us of our feeling of sharing what looks like a noble cause.

    Cheers!
    George

    Reply
  28. MSJ

    As far as I know none of the hospitals are having fund crunch to buy Oxygen.. the challenge is unavailability of oxygen.. so why from past 3 days CRED has started this campaign of converting the CRED coins to fund buying of oxygen… is it another advertising strategy or way of improving margin as CRED coins wouldn’t be converted into money and CRED will have a better balance sheet.
    Yes, I also very happily donated. But then when i actually started thinking. Where will they source the millions of litres of oxygen ?
    I think this is a question they will need to answer !

    Reply
  29. Varun

    Thanks
    Redeemed all 20 lacs points which got accumulated over last 1.5 yrs for this noble cause.

    I have lost my cousin brother and friend this month due to Covid. Wish some one else doesn’t grasp for breath.

    Reply
  30. Aditya T

    Switch to Amazonpay to actually get cashback that isn’t laughable.

    Cred had a good run, will continue to use it as tracker but these charity gimmicks (do the math, its a farce) seems like alleviating guilt of otherwise uncharitable people.

    Reply
  31. Mahesh S. Panicker

    Currently down with COVID. Donated 200000+ coins for this. It may not turn out to be a massive contribution, and it may only be the machines. But it is something, and the machines can help people with moderate conditions. Even many government facilities are using these machines as much as possible.

    Reply
  32. Harshit

    Burned all the coins accumulated till date for donating ‘oxygen’.

    Then proceeded to delete my account with Cred. I have absolutely no inclination to support any company which is using the ongoing emergency for their own good.

    Reply
    1. Dinesh

      I don’t think CRED will ever become profitable.

      Does it still harvest our data even though we don’t give access to email? I just use ‘pay’ button and enter my bill amount.

      They should work on value discovery for their coins. Otherwise it is Useless coins till now. After reading comments i feel whether our coins had any purpose or was it just gimmick to offload thousands of coins of users in the name of charity?

      Reply
  33. Amit

    One more observation, this mission has a target of 1 billion litre. There’s no way of knowing when will this target be reached by donations of cred coins. Lakhs of app users will keep donating for this noble cause and any donations over and above the target (which am sure would have already been met) will simply be a windfall for Cred!

    Reply
  34. Sathyadev

    Hi Siddharth
    Can you do an updated review of secured credit cards that are available? The review posted here is from 2016, and I feel a lot of people whose CC applications keep getting rejected (me, for eg.) and the new gen of CC holders can highly benefit from your holistic reviews.

    Reply
    1. Shivi

      Secured credit cards can’t be rejected. What are you talking about?

      Reply
  35. Kumar

    CRED is just a data harvesting platform which they show and sell in aggregates to get more VC funds. fine print on the privacy policy. I delete my account long back given their operating model. Their ads irritate me a lot, out of 10 videos I watch on YouTube their ads bulldoze on 9 of them, sometime multiple times on same video, crazy Google algos.

    Reply
  36. Mohit Singhania

    Another fake advertising by Cred to reduce their liability. Where is the oxygen? Where is the proof? Just let people offload their guilt by giving hollow promises and nobody would care about the authenticity.

    It is the next Mobikwik waiting to happen. I had used cred for 1 year when they were giving useful rewards.

    Now their rewards are truly their rewards. Only they get rewarded when they fool the customers into buying anything from their shopping catalog. I just hope that people who have good credit scores aren’t foolish enough to shop from their fake offers.

    Not even 1 single offer is useful. I cancelled my account with 30 lakh points but still they didnt delete my existing data with them citing government regulations which requires them to hold on to my card and personal data.

    Reissued all my cards, now they cant do duck all with my data. If only I could change my personal data that cred has gotten access to by duping me into their fake coins.

    Reply
    1. Arnab Chaudhuri

      Whats the source of your paranoia or outburst? You are alright I hope medically.

      Reply
  37. Shivi

    YES Bank enables reward points redemption to refill oxygen cylinders for COVID-19 patients. Customers can now redeem their existing reward points to refill oxygen cylinders of 1,500 litres and 6,000 litres.

    The reward points redeemed towards oxygen refill will be channelled through GiveIndia and used to replenish medical oxygen at charitable hospitals in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.

    All the donations, either through reward points or using a debit or credit card, will be eligible for a 50 percent tax exemption under 80G.

    Reply
  38. Mugunthan

    Never had any belief in this app.

    Installed this app once an year back, added my card details, checked how it works for an hour or so and then uninstalled.

    Hope @Siddharth or some one like @Shreyas Singh comes with more exact calculations to see how CRED is more benefited than the users.

    ==
    @Satish Kumar Agarwal
    The jackpot you won is really you were looking for it to buy elsewhere ?

    Reply
  39. Winner

    Yups…..Won It and also know couple others who did.
    But question is will you believe it.

    Reply
  40. Rishikesh Jalan

    Has anyone confirmed if they actually do provide oxygen to anyone? Cred coins do not have any Rupee valuation and I doubt they will be able to afford or procure any of that oxygen.

    Reply
  41. Anand

    I haven’t won the jackpots , but have won multiple 40/50 percent off offers. The offer is pretty much useless and is just like a clearnce sale.
    Old spice 50 percent voucher .. and only deodorants are available for purchase. So am I supposed to buy 500rs deodorants for an apparent benefit of 250rs?

    It is total waste of time and just pure marketing. Not even good at that

    Reply
  42. Amitabh Ranjan

    Does anyone have first hand experience with the Hotels / Travel options it shows for redeeming cred points ?

    It shows me some huge cred point balance like 10-15 lac points but the redeem options never inspired much confidence so I have not tried them yet.

    Specially as all products have some part to be paid in cash and some in points. Unless there are at least some products, even smaller ones, that need only points, I tend to feel doubtful.

    In terms of purely making payments for multiple cards I find it very useful. Somehow this is one app where I have never faced any problem at all.

    But now that I see the type of problems some users have faced maybe i should revaluate. If Cred doesn’t have anyone for support on phone who is empowered to do something meaningful to help the user then it doesn’t have much future. One bad experience with financial transactions is enough. Specially when its a 3rd party’s fault.

    The app quality is definitely way better compared to any other indian or MNC bank app or Utilities/Telecom or even shopping apps like amazon.

    And it does exhaustively parse through all your SMS/Emails etc to find out even old cards and card nos which have changed etc so i am making payments with old card no NEFT registered while bills are for new nos. So sometimes its been very useful for me. Seeing which old card or which add-on card is where. Maybe i could search my own gmail and find it out too but…

    And I no longer have a few forgotten payments and a few double payments every year like earlier or not noticing incorrect billing till 6 months down the line.

    Its definitely a privacy nightmare for many people. I thought the tradeoff is fine as long the app is upfront about it and I can fully disable it when i want. Specially since anyway there are already 5-6 apps crawling through all my emails, sms and even scraping text from all my messaging apps by using the notification service or accessibility service etc. And this is apart from the OS guys like Apple/Google/Microsoft or the shopping social media ones like Amazon/FB/IG/Twitter/Linkedin. Then a few smaller apps like Truecaller etc.

    It’s surprising how well they managed to market CRED. Since 1-2 years it’s almost impossible to launch any meaningful “payments” app in India since we have the UPI/VPA/BHIM by NPCI, plus we already had IMPS/NEFT/RTGS by RBI.
    So the incremental value add by Google Pay or WhatsApp pay or Paytm, Phonepe or a hundred other payment apps is very low, almost zero. Just that bank apps used to be very rudimentary but now they all have same features like picking up people from address book and locating their UPI VPA automatically so you can make payment.

    Neither is there much technical infra required since they all piggy back on UPI / NEFT essentially, there’s hardly anything to do except focus on marketing it and selling userbase & transaction information in new ways.

    Compared to them, Cred was the first one which added at least a little bit of useful value for me. IMHO.

    But if there’s a chance i can be stuck with some large payment floating around inside Cred with boilerplate call center response about refunded in 5-7 days then i have to rethink.

    Reply
  43. KBM

    Have mixed feelings about Cred. Have been using it for about 2 years now, and the rewards/cashback are insignificant. But it is useful as a one stop shop to handle and track all my CC payments.
    As for settlement times, I have found that there is a large variation depending on the bank.
    SBI card for example processes payments done through Cred almost instantly.
    Indusind and BOB take some 3-4 days, while on one occasion HSBC took about 7-8 days to process the PAYMENT. Had to call up their customer care helpline and intimate them because it was on the verge of being labeled as a delayed payment. The customer care executive was helpful, but made it very clear that they don’t approve of the app. Did not pay for that card using Cred again, but it only contributed to my mixed feelings regarding the whole model of this application.

    Reply
  44. Ankit B

    Apart from the free rewards that Cred used to give in the past, the most amazing thing Cred used to offer till 2019 was Cred experiences which are more or less gone now (in a large part, thanks to COVID as well). Not sure if they will make a comeback post-COVID. But to me, that was the major value that CRED used to bring to the table. I have used Cred points for this in the past.
    1. Alan Walker Sunburn Bangalore VIP concert tickets (Not sure of exact price but each one would have been easily worth Rs. 1-1.5K)
    2. Sarah Todd (Masterchef AU fame) event at Reservoire
    and many other similar experiences

    Reply
  45. Krishan Kumar

    I have more then 15 Lakhs+ Cred Coins……and didn’t looks about rewards…seems it helps 🙂

    Reply

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