Kiwi, a credit on UPI platform, has partnered with Axis Bank to bolster 'Credit on UPI' accessibility on Rupay credit cards. The partnership enables Kiwi users to seamlessly access the RuPay lifetime free virtual Axis Bank KWIK credit card through the app. 

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recently introduced the Credit on UPI feature to facilitate digital payments. 

Users can make merchant payments within the Kiwi app using their credit cards via UPI, offering a virtual payment experience, eliminating the need for physical cards. The end-to-end digital payment solution aims at enhancing the payment experience for customers. 

With this partnership, customers can enjoy the benefits of credit card rewards while experiencing the convenience of UPI's fast and secure payment. They will get two edge rewards for every Rs 200 spent with one per cent cashback on scan and pay transactions and one per cent fuel surcharge waiver.

Siddharth Mehta, co-founder of Kiwi, said, "Our goal at Kiwi is to enable one million users to access credit cards on UPI over the next 18 months, and we plan to achieve this by forging additional banking partnerships in the upcoming months." 

Sanjeev Moghe, president and head for cards and Payments at Axis Bank, said, "The digital payments space has grown significantly in recent years. The RBI's credit card-UPI linkage announcement is expected to boost credit card usage for small-value payments on the UPI platform. This will encourage more customers to choose credit cards, benefiting from the convenience of UPI that was previously limited only to bank accounts.". 

Praveena Rai, Chief Operating Officer, NPCI, said that this collaboration will propel credit and payment accessibility to a wider user base, providing them with secure and innovative payment options for seamless online and offline transactions. "We look forward to the widespread usage, growth and penetration of this unique payment solution, which combines the convenience of UPI with the rewards and benefits of RuPay Credit Cards," she added.

As a fintech focused on credit cards with UPI, Kiwi's payments platform offers users complete end-to-end lifecycle management of credit products on the app. This is from onboarding and issuing a virtual credit card to enable payments using the issued 'CC on UPI' to rewards on repayment (Kiwis tokens). 

Bengaluru-based Kiwi was co-founded by Siddharth Mehta, ex-CEO of Freecharge, LazyPay's erstwhile business head Anup Agrawal and Mohit Bedi, who worked with Axis Bank and PayU. In May 2023, it raised $6 million in pre-seed funding from investors like Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and several angel investors.