| | | Good morning! It is so clear that fintechs in India are doing more to think out of the box with credit card reward structures and specific use-case value, than traditional banks. We’ve talked about some of these co-branded credit card efforts a few weeks ago, you may remember, and then as well fintechs including PhonePe and BharatPe figured prominently. There are more, but I’ll focus our attention this week on CRED, which has partnered with IndusInd Bank for what is called the CRED IndusInd Bank Rupay Credit Card, and a Sovereign credit card that’s apparently made of 18-carat gold. “Take a good look at it because you will probably not see it again,” the words of CEO Kunal Shah. Think American Express Centurion? You’re new to the game! | | We know little about Sovereign, except that it is essentially dressed in actual gold and has a rather interesting design. Don’t think Kunal Shah and CRED would assess my net worth even close to being enough to be sent a Sovereign “invite”, and they wouldn’t at all be wrong. Specifics of the annual fees or exactly how it plugs into the CRED platform remains to be unveiled, but then again, it is meant for the audience that doesn’t really count reward points and misuse credit card “tricks”. All CRED says about Sovereign for now is, this will include “early-stage investment access with India’s top investors, curated art and collectibles; cultural influence, and white-glove travel including civilian spaceflight.” If you’re smart, you can guess the membership fee range. It’s not for the social media audience anyway. | | | | But at least we know the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) homegrown RuPay payments platform now has a “EKAA” tier (alongside Classic, Platinum and Select), which is what the expected HDFC Infinia super-premium RuPay credit card should be based on. This should find comparisons with Visa’s Infinite and MasterCard’s World Elite tiers. Along with CRED, RuPay too is growing up fast. | | | | There’s more known about the upcoming CRED IndusInd Bank Rupay Credit Card. No joining fee, as in free for the first year, but you’ll pay a ₹499 fees annually subsequently. The design language is interesting, at least to my eyes. The biggest point of value would be the structure that allows you to collect CRED Points (mind you, they’re different from the ‘Coins’ which I’m sure you have in lakhs idling away inside the CRED app) for every e-commerce transaction. Crucial to card transaction classification is a factor of the MCC or Merchant Category Code, but I’m guessing most online purchases will give you 5 points for every ₹100 spent. | | | | CRED is smartly pushing its travel, store and pay products (I’ll get to the redemptions in the next point; you’ll get the picture), which also collect 5 CRED Points for every ₹100 spent. Same for transactions done using CRED UPI via other platforms and apps, but only earn 1 CRED Point for every ₹100 spent using CRED UPI’s scan and pay option, as well as life insurance and utility bill payments. One could argue this card could have delivered a more enticing reward structure, but this is what it is, the fintech testing waters. Also makes a case for a more premium card, at some stage. | | | | CRED wants to build beyond the traditional credit card management and digital payments positioning that has stuck, and fast. There’s the travel aspect they want to leverage, and therefore want users to find value in redeeming every collected point (I’ll reiterate again, these points are different from the poorly valued coins) for a ₹ when booking flights or hotels — either on CRED or via CRED Pay merchants. | The credit card(s) pitch is just one element for CRED’s evolution as a fintech. CRED Money, which was launched a few months ago to help get a quicker oversight of your bank accounts, is now widening scope to add mutual funds and stock portfolios, alongside new investment options in fixed deposits (FDs) and 24-karat gold at live prices. CRED’s move to find a stake in your money management and investment game, marks a shift from a very focused credit card management + bill payment + rewards positioning that remained core for years (though forays like Garage helped push specific use-cases, including selling vehicle insurance). This also marks CRED approaching its user base as tiers, and there’s nothing wrong in that. The top tier, the most affluent, will be bestowed with the Sovereign privilege and the sense of luxury they’d want — with that will come premium spending, luxury experiences, selective subscriptions and so on. The rest of the base, comparatively more functional in a way, would find relevance in travel value and investing their spare liquidity every month. CRED’s shedding that selective “1%” approach, and aggressively widening the base, as any maturing fintech that’s developed broad functionality would (they call it Yosemite). With this will come more sources of revenue, such as the Store, Travel, Pay, Garage and now the credit card. Sovereign may just be the trump card with that. CRED has matured, with Kunal Shah’s sharp brains seeing trends and data in perspective most of us don’t. That has brought this fintech to where it is today, with a claimed 1.5 crore monthly active users. This is certainly good news for consumers and India’s fintech space. At this point, a simple observation — something needs to be done about those "coins" that sit in our accounts, idling way, worth not much. Linking those to points, at least for those who sign up for the new credit card (that would be one way to push early adoption), could be one way to draw some value from the coins collected after years and years of bill payments. | | BREAKING SPAM It was just less than a year ago (time has absolutely flown by) when Bharti Airtel announced an AI-powered spam detection solution going Live for all users on the Airtel network. Within the first 2.5 months, they claimed to have flagged a staggering 8 billion spam calls and 0.8 billion spam SMSes. I wouldn’t have doubted that data then, and I would absolutely testify that this solution works, even now. They’ve only improved it in the time that’s passed. Credit is due to Airtel, for having delivered what they have. This week, there’s more data to show the effectiveness of a network-wide spam and scam detection tool warning users every time there is an incoming call or message on their phone. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) — Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) says there has been a 68.7% decrease in the value of financial losses and a 14.3% drop in overall cybercrime incidents on the Airtel network, since this solution went Live in all telecom circles. The data analyzed by MHA-I4C compares key cybercrime indicators from September 2024—prior to the launch of Airtel’s Fraud & spam detection solution —with those from June 2025. Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel makes it clear that the development of this solution is far from over, when he says, “In the past one year, our AI-powered network solutions have identified over 48.3 billion spam calls and blocked 3.2 lakhs fraudulent links. However, we see this as small steps in a much larger fight.” | | 26 IS THE NUMBER In case you haven’t already by the time you read this on Thursday morning, there’s the latest generation of operating systems that are now available for your Apple devices. iOS 26 for the iPhone, iPadOS 26 for the iPad, macOS Tahoe for the Macs, watchOS 26 for the Apple Watch and tvOS 26 for the Apple TV 4K. You’d have noticed, Apple is switching to the year-based naming scheme for its software lines. iOS 26: The gorgeous Liquid Glass is the biggest visual overhaul for the iPhone software in years, and that isn’t the only change. Under the hood are smarter changes still, one that should hold iOS in good stead for the next half a decade at least. Live translation across FaceTime (and also AirPods Pro 3), Messages and Phone, a more capable CarPlay, screening calls to ask callers why they’re calling, hold assist and an on-device intelligence based optimisation for battery consumption called Adaptive Power. I would note this, particularly based on recency of experience with the release candidate (RC) and the final release of iOS 26, that this is the most stable release in quite a few years — and that includes battery life. The fact that iOS 26 supports iPhone 11 (2019 release) and the iPhone SE (released in 2020) reflects a scenario that Android phone makers can only dream of.  iPadOS 26: It’s biggest change, after years of subtle changes, is a wholesale shift towards intuitive productivity. Still not exactly macOS in its behaviour, but gets the closest it’s ever been with Exposé for window management, more tiling flexibility, as well as macOS-like controls to close or minimise windows. There’s parity with iOS in terms of the Liquid Glass personality, but more users would be delighted that’s where the similarities largely end. This makes any iPad paired with a Magic Keyboard, a particularly great productivity device now. A Mac, with a touchscreen? Gets very close, in my initial impressions.  macOS Tahoe: The Liquid Glass interface extends to the macOS too, and that makes for a delightful visual experience on a computing device (particularly the Studio Display, as I have the privilege to when working at home). Spotlight search is more enhanced, and you’ll quite like the clipboard history (just don’t be sharing the device with another user). Continuity from your iPhone builds that ecosystem synergy, with the phone’s Live Activities also showing up on the Mac, and a new Phone app which brings the iPhone’s functionality including call screening. watchOS 26: Liquid Glass on an Apple Watch looks absolutely gorgeous, and you shouldn’t take my word for it. That Smart Stack, those music controls and that control centre, with just the right glassy transparency, gives the Watch interface a refresh unlike anything else till now. watchOS 26 also adds something called Sleep Score to track the quality of sleep as well as the Notes app, and you’ll notice refresh across the board including the Workout app, and Live Translation as well as Smart Actions in Messages. Support goes as far back as the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple Watch SE 2. | | LOYALTY AND DATA In the lead-up to the Apple Keynote last week, Tata Group’s omni-channel electronics retail brand Croma, shared some interesting data around iPhones and the typical purchase trends in India. This data is from September 2024 to August 2025, basically since last year’s iPhone release. Geographically, Maharashtra emerged as the largest iPhone market for Croma with over 25% share of sales during the period. Gujarat was a distant second with 11% and Delhi came a close third with 10%. This, Croma says, underscores a broad base of demand across both western and northern India. Secondly, Non-Pro iPhones formed just over 86% of total sales, compared to 14% for Pro models — this clearly means the mainstream phones are core to iPhone sales in the country. “Screen size exhibited a similar pattern with standard-size models such as iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16e comprising over 87% of sales, while larger-screen devices including iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro Max made up 12.5%,” Croma’s data adds. What about upgrade trends? Croma says that during this period, 20.5% exchanged an older iPhone for a new model of the iPhone (and 17% of all iPhone sales were completed with AppleCare added on). “What the data shows is a very savvy, yet pragmatic Indian iPhone buyer. They know exactly what they need, prioritizing the seamless experience of the iPhone while making practical choices,” a Croma–Infiniti Retail Ltd. spokesperson says.  Retailers rush to collect iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air pre-orders That brings me to this moment in time, because online and offline retailers are lining up to collect pre-orders for the latest iPhone 17 series, before they go on sale on September 19. There are aggressive discount bundles being created, in partnership with banks for payments made using their credit cards as well as exchange offers, to sweeten the deal for a new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air. “On the pricing front Apple has this time retained the price points except in a few instances, indicating they are expecting a flattish growth globally. Despite rupee weakening against dollar by around 5% in 2025 over 2024 they haven’t made major price jumps in India,” notes Faisal Kawoosa, chief analyst at research firm Techarc, in a conversation with me. To be noted, prices of the new iPhone 17 starts at ₹82,900 while the iPhone 17 Pro is priced ₹1,34,900 onwards while the flagship iPhone 17 Pro Max costs ₹1,49,900 onwards. The new addition to the iPhone portfolio, the iPhone Air, demands you part with ₹1,19,900 onwards. | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written and edited by Vishal Shanker Mathur. Produced by Md Shad Hasnain. | | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
