CRED looks to deepen wealth management play with new version of ‘Kuvera’

Kunal Shah ’s fintech CRED is looking to deepen its wealth management play while enhancing features on the ‘Kuvera’ app. With a base of 3 lakh investors and nearly ₹33,000 crore in assets under management, the company aims to nudge users towards liquid funds. Its new ‘Surplus’ feature, an invite-only investment avenue, offers access to liquid funds with a minimum investment threshold of ₹1 lakh. 

CRED has partnered with four AMCs—DSP Asset Managers Pvt. Ltd., ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd., Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd. , and HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd.—to offer a curated set of liquid funds on the platform. The feature allows investors to withdraw up to ₹4 lakh within five minutes, with the full amount redeemable within 24 hours.

What are the enhanced offering 

The enhanced offering also includes new insights, analytics, and recommendations for users’ investment portfolios. In early 2024, CRED acquired wealth and investment management platform Kuvera in a cash-and-stock deal. Founded in 2017 by Gaurav Rastogi (former portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley) and Neelabh Sanyal (former vice president at Axis Capital), Kuvera continues to operate as a standalone app. 

As Kuvera looks to compete in the fast-growing wealth management and advisory segment, Shah, founder and CEO of CRED, believes the space remains underpenetrated. 

Is one-time financial advice enough for lasting wealth creation

Speaking to Fortune India, he said wealth creation requires more than a one-off visit to an advisor. “You need guidance and handholding to be regular and contextual to how the world is evolving around you.” He is also betting on user behaviour, noting a growing preference for discreet wealth creation through frictionless tech platforms. “So, the idea is to build for the new set of wealthy ...build it in a more simplistic and easier to consume manner on a regular intervention basis,” he noted. 

Kuvera, which primarily sees the bulk of its users investing in mutual funds, said equity investments picked up during the Covid period, with nearly 75% of mutual fund investors now also investing in equities through the app. With 15 million high-creditworthy users on the CRED app, and around 60% of India’s multi-card holders active on the platform, the company is looking to cross-pollinate its investment offerings. Without setting timelines, Shah said the company plans to launch many more things on Kuvera. “We want to truly establish how are you doing first on the base line and then propose things based on it,” he said.  

Recently, CRED received a nod from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator (PA), enabling the company to onboard merchants, collect payments on their behalf across instruments, and handle settlement and refunds. CRED now holds a prepaid payment instrument (PPI) licence as well as a payment aggregator (PA) licence. 

Earlier this January, while reporting its financial performance for FY25, CRED said its consolidated operating revenue stood at ₹2,735 crore, up 16% year-on-year. Gross margins were at 70% while operating losses narrowed 51% to ₹298 crore. The company attributed this partly to deeper user engagement across multiple products, which drove strong monetisation. According to its release, 45% of active members engaged with three or more products, resulting in an average revenue per user (ARPU) of ₹2,000. 

During the reported financial year, CRED’s lending business also grew, with assets under management (AUM) at ₹22,000 crore. Lending emerged as one of the top three revenue drivers, alongside payments and insurance, the company added.