Credit-on-UPI fintech Kiwi rooted in upheavals in economy, co-founder says

Demonetisation and the pandemic drove India's digital transformation in financial services. Companies built unique use cases around UPI

Fintech firm Kiwi’s co-founder Mohit Bedi recalls how spending eight years at a private sector bank starting 2015, through demonetisation in 2016, and eventually the pandemic in 2020 set the tone to venture into building a company from scratch. Today, it offers credit via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) by issuing RuPay cards in association with banks, the first fintech app to offer this service. 

Bedi founded Kiwi in 2022 at a time when debit UPI transactions were reaching new highs and companies used the real-time payments system as a funnel to acquire new customers. 

But there was a catch. Processing