Indian fintech startup ZET has received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India to operate as a Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP), enabling it to launch UPI payments on its platform, according to the company.
The licence allows ZET to roll out ZET UPI, a feature that lets existing and new ZET credit card customers make payments across the UPI merchant network using their RuPay credit cards. Users earn a flat 2% cashback on all ZET UPI transactions, alongside additional rewards bundled into the company’s subscription offering.
ZET’s core product is a fixed-deposit-backed credit card, often the first credit card for its users. The cards are issued on the RuPay network, are lifetime free, and can be linked to UPI following the TPAP approval. The company says about 75% of its card users are first-time credit card holders.
Founded by Manish Shara and Yash Desai, ZET focuses on expanding access to formal credit for India’s so-called “credit-invisible” population: adults with limited or no credit history. The company estimates this segment at nearly 400 million people.
“Our mission is to solve the credit gap for India Two,” Shara said, referring to customers earning between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000 a month. “They’re not eligible for unsecured cards, so this becomes their entry point into the formal credit ecosystem.”
“Credit cards are crucial because they keep a credit profile active indefinitely, as long as you keep paying on time,” Shara told YourStory in an exclusive interview.
The strategy
ZET is taking a different approach to UPI than other fintechs that have used the platform primarily as a customer acquisition tool.
Flipkart-backed super.money uses UPI to attract customers with cashbacks, hoping to convert them to other services such as fixed deposits, flight tickets, or co-branded cards. Navi, which also relies on cashbacks on UPI, uses the platform to sell loans and mutual funds. Razorpay’s Pop Club uses it to sell merchandise such as apparel and accessories.
ZET, by contrast, is not using UPI as an acquisition channel, at least initially. “Right now, customers must first get a ZET card and then link it to UPI,” he said. He said the company already has sufficient scale on the credit side, reducing the need to use UPI as a top-of-funnel growth lever.
“The moment RuPay credit cards became usable across the UPI merchant network, we knew we had to be part of that ecosystem to scale and truly solve the credit gap,” Shara said.
The company views UPI integration as critical for understanding customer behaviour. “When customers link their RuPay credit card to ZET UPI, they use the app multiple times a day. That increases affinity and gives us rich behavioural intelligence—spends across food, dining, online purchases, P2P transfers, and more,” Shara said. “This allows us to build proprietary underwriting and eventually offer one-click credit experiences.”
Shara’s target customer base already conducts 60-70% of their spending via UPI, making the integration a natural fit.
By routing everyday payments—ranging from merchant transactions to peer-to-peer transfers—through its own UPI app, the company is able to observe spending behaviour across categories and over time, feeding those signals into its underwriting models. Shara said this approach helps ZET build confidence in customer risk profiles before extending additional credit.
The company uses continuous underwriting based on FD amounts and top-ups, card utilisation, repayment behaviour, and spending patterns across merchant category codes. “Every action updates our risk understanding,” Shara said.
Early traction
ZET received the TPAP licence in December 2025, with January 2026 marking its first full live month on UPI. Within two weeks of launch, around 50% of eligible card users had set up a UPI ID and linked both their bank account and RuPay credit card on the ZET app, the company said.
At launch, roughly 1 million ZET users are eligible to use the UPI product. Over the next three months, the company expects monthly UPI transaction volumes via credit cards to reach about Rs 100 crore.
Adoption has been rapid, according to Shara. “We received the TPAP licence in December 2025. In just 20 days, 75% of ZET card customers have already linked their cards to ZET UPI,” he said.
Lending ambitions
ZET’s business is anchored in credit underwriting and lending. The company partners with three banks for its credit cards, including public sector lender Indian Overseas Bank. It’s the only fintech with three co-brand credit card lines, according to Shara.
In October last year, ZET acquired a non-banking financial company license, which it plans to operationalise for lending from February. Under this structure, some customers will be underwritten and financed directly from the NBFC, while others will access credit through partner NBFCs within its ecosystem.
ZET is backed by Peak XV Partners, General Catalyst, WaterBridge Ventures, and Nexus Venture Partners, along with angel investors including Kunal Shah, Amrish Rau, and Jitendra Gupta.
The company is currently in fundraising conversations. “We’re in conversations with like-minded investors,” Shara said.
He attributed investor interest to the company’s diversified infrastructure. “We’re unique because of our robust supply stack—three co-brand cards, a public sector bank partnership, our own NBFC, our TPAP, and upcoming credit lines on UPI. Combined with our focus on India Two, this creates a strong moat,” Shara said. “Interest from investors has been largely inbound.”