By Puja Sharma
India’s financial system is entering 2026 without the drama that once accompanied every new FinTech milestone. There are no breathless launch announcements, no declarations of disruption. Instead, there is something more telling: digital finance has started to feel ordinary. And that ordinariness signals a far deeper shift underway.
Payments, once the headline act of India’s FinTech story, are no longer the destination. They are the foundation. The real transformation now lies in how credit is being layered onto this payment-first economy, quietly reshaping how Indians borrow, spend, and participate in the formal financial system.
As Priyanka Kanwar, CEO & Co-Founder of Falcon said, “2026 will be the year when real, structural shifts reshape India’s financial landscape. After a year of experimentation, Credit on UPI will finally scale, emerging as one of the most powerful customer acquisition engines, especially for new-to-credit segments. We’ll also see real-time payments become increasingly interoperable globally, with UPI powering low-cost cross-border flows. But this next phase demands stronger infrastructure: banks will need modern, cloud-native credit and UPI stacks to keep pace with credit volumes. At the same time, FinTechs will pivot from pure payments to deeper credit- and commerce-led monetisation. The ecosystem is moving from payment ubiquity to credit ubiquity—and the platforms that can support both will define the next decade.”
That phrase—credit ubiquity—captures the moment perfectly. India solved for access to payments at scale. Now it is solving for access to credit at scale, without losing control.
Credit grows up
If the first phase of FinTech was about growth at all costs, the next phase is about restraint with intent. Credit is expanding, but the industry’s posture has changed. There is a clear move away from reckless experimentation toward products that embed discipline by design.
Manish Shara, Co-founder and CEO of ZET, noted, Across the financial sector, we’re seeing a clear shift towards safer and more disciplined credit growth. Secured products are becoming a natural starting point for many borrowers. FD-backed credit cards and other low-risk offerings are helping lenders manage risk while giving new-to-credit users a practical path into the formal credit ecosystem. This approach is creating healthier repayment behaviour and improving access for people who were previously excluded. Combined with better onboarding, improved data use and clearer compliance standards, this shift is guiding the industry towards more steady and predictable growth. The industry is shifting towards a more balanced model where responsible lending and long-term customer stability are valued just as much as scale.”
This is a notable correction from earlier cycles. Instead of pushing unsecured credit as the fastest route to inclusion, the system is acknowledging that inclusion without sustainability solves little. Secured and semi-secured instruments are becoming bridges, not barriers. They allow first-time borrowers to build history, confidence, and discipline without destabilising lenders.
It’s a quieter kind of progress, but a healthier one.
Payments fade into the background
Meanwhile, payments themselves have disappeared into daily life. UPI no longer feels like FinTech; it feels like plumbing. And that invisibility is exactly what enables the next wave of credit innovation.
Kundan Shahi, founder of Zavo, captured how deeply embedded digital payments and credit already are, “In my view, 2026 is shaping up to be the year of digital payments and everyday credit in India. Contactless mobile wallets and UPI transfers already feel as normal as handing over cash, and they’re now powering almost the entire retail payment flow. On the credit side, flexible options like BNPL and easy EMIs are everywhere. The user base is exploding, and small-ticket loans through FinTech apps have become a routine part of how people finance daily life. Even school fees, fuel, and groceries quietly get split into installments now. Put simply, digital wallets and buy now, pay later aren’t trends anymore. They’re the default. And by 2026, most of India’s payments are likely to move through this digital-first world.”
This normalisation has consequences. When credit becomes ambient—embedded into everyday spending—it stops being perceived as a financial product and starts behaving like infrastructure. That raises the bar for everyone involved. Risk management cannot be reactive. Infrastructure cannot be brittle. Consumer trust cannot be optional.
Infrastructure becomes destiny
What ties these perspectives together is an underlying truth: the next decade of Indian FinTech will be decided less by innovation at the surface and more by strength beneath it.
Credit on UPI, BNPL, global real-time payments, and secured digital credit all depend on systems that can handle volume without fragility. Cloud-native stacks, resilient orchestration layers, and compliance-aware architecture are no longer “nice to have.” They are prerequisites.
Banks that modernise their UPI and credit infrastructure will unlock scale with control. FinTechs that move beyond payments into credit and commerce will find new revenue pools—but only if their systems can carry the weight. Platforms that attempt to shortcut this phase will struggle under scrutiny, regulation, or simple operational stress.
The bigger story
What makes 2026 different is not the arrival of a single killer product. It is the convergence of maturity across the ecosystem. Payments are universal. Credit is becoming contextual. Risk is being priced with more discipline. Infrastructure is finally getting the attention it deserves.
India’s FinTech story is no longer about proving what’s possible. It’s about proving what’s sustainable.
And in that shift—from excitement to endurance—the real winners of the next decade will emerge quietly, building systems that work not just when everything goes right, but especially when it doesn’t.