UPI is the trojan horse taking small banks into HDFC, Axis's credit-card empire

After two years of slow adoption, Credit-Line-on-UPI is finally taking off, but not with the big banks.

Small banks and fintechs are leading the charge, while the big incumbents that dominate credit cards hold back.

For HDFC and Axis, it's a really difficult choice. Should they compete on CLOU and risk cannibalising their own cards, or scale it through the very fintechs they're trying to outmatch?

Meanwhile, a matured tech stack has turned CLOU into a full-strength card equivalent, complete with real-time underwriting. And while CLOU had promised inclusion for those who can't normally access credit, the promised inclusion has actually been flipped.

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