The move comes amid a wave of new entrants in the space, including Super.Money and Navi, even as established players like PhonePe and Google Pay maintain their stranglehold over the market.
Also Read: Using GPay, Paytm? 5 UPI payments safety tips and tricks. Read here
“We power nearly 8-10 other LSPs (loan service providers) in the market,” Akshay Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO of Fibe. “We’ve built a strong backend ecosystem, which is why our scale is so significant. Since we deeply understand lending and monetization, the idea is to explore doing one or two things directly in the payments space, starting with UPI.”
Mehrotra added that the company has received preliminary approval from NPCI, and will roll out a UPI payment feature after receiving the final license expected in the next three months.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an organization established by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian banks to facilitate digital payment services in the country, issues UPI licences.
Prashanth Ramdas, partner at Khaitan & Co., an expert in fintech and financial regulatory laws, said a growing number of existing and new-age players have received the Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP) licence, for companies to operate within the UPI ecosystem in India.
“Today, we have over 37 registered players, and the numbers have been growing over the past few years. From NPCI’s standpoint, the intent hasn’t been to limit access to the UPI ecosystem,” said Ramdas. “But at the same time, it does evaluate the potential customer base and business use case for awarding the licence.”
Positive about Fibe
Fibe has close to 2 million monthly active users on its platform. Founded in 2015 by Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal, it offers both short- and long-term personal loans across segments like health, edtech and insurance financing, among others. In the last funding round, a $90 million round with participation from Hong Kong-based TR Capital, Trifecta Capital and Amara Partners, Fibe was valued at over $600 million.
The company entered Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) products in the education and healthcare categories last year. The category now accounts for about 15% of the total revenue and will grow to 25-30% this year.
Also Read: Buy Now, Pay Later: How BNPL influences your credit score
For future incremental revenue, the company also plans to introduce two secured lending products. The first is a mass-market loan against mutual funds, starting at ₹15,000.
The second is a residential rooftop solar loan, enabling households to install solar panels with net metering, offered with a 36-month zero-cost EMI option.
To be sure, RBI has cracked down on Indian lending fintechs, especially those operating in the unsecured category. In November 2023, RBI directed banks and NBFCs to provision more capital against unsecured loans and moderate their exposure to riskier retail segments.
RBI measures
Hit by the crackdown, fintech lenders spent most of 2024 cleaning up their books, cutting back on risky loan portfolios, and pivoting toward co-lending and secured loan products like home loans.
Mehrotra added that while the company is entering the secured lending space, it will primarily continue to focus on unsecured products, leveraging AI to enhance their security without the need for collateral.
As for its initial public offering (IPO), the company is in wait-and-watch mode.
“I’d say we need to be prepared for an IPO, but unlike some of our peers, we’re not under pressure to list early,” Mehrotra said. “For us, the next 24 months will be about staying IPO-ready. If the market is favourable, we’ll consider it—but we’re not in a rush.”
This comes as several mid-sized fintech firms—particularly those with valuations under $1 billion—are preparing to go public, despite volatile markets and mixed investor sentiment. As Mint reported over the past two months, firms such as Moneyview, KreditBee, Kissht, and Turtlemint are also in various stages of tapping the public markets.