Pine Labs, which has looked to diversify from offline payments, will use the new stack to provide fintechs and banks the ability to manage credit programmes, launch co-branded credit cards, help with rewards and loyalty management, as well as provide online merchants the ability to provide embedded credit offerings to users.
Currently, Credit+ has partnered with Mastercard and Visa, as it looks to launch other card network providers such as Amex and RuPay.
Getting RuPay is critical for card infrastructure providers, especially on the issuance side, as it allows fintechs to provide credit on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
“This foray into credit builds on our market leadership in both prepaid gift cards (Qwikcilver), and embedded financial services (Setu),” Amrish Rau, chief executive officer, Pine Labs, wrote on the company blog.
Qwikcilver and Setu are two major acquisitions made by Pine Labs in 2019 and 2022, respectively.
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Increased interest in credit management startups
ET had earlier reported that with the proliferation of credit, several fintech infrastructure startups, such as card management platform 42 Card Solutions, banking service platform Falcon and credit and treasury management firm, Knight Fintech, were also in the market to raise their next round of funding.These platforms are gaining investor interest as smaller banks try to digitise their infrastructure.
Even Perfios, which has raised $229 million in a mix of primary and secondary capital this year, provides solutions to financial institutions helping them manage credit products.
Diversifying revenue lines and expansion
Pine Labs’ strategy to diversify its revenue lines has led it to ensure that less than 50% of its revenue comes from the offline point-of-sale (PoS) business, Rau told ET earlier. The PoS business contributed to a majority of Pine Labs’ revenues until a few years back.
Gift card issuances, instalment payment services, and payment gateway business are other strong revenue lines.
Pine Labs, which has made at least five to six acquisitions across 2021 and 2022, has been focusing on international expansion across West Asia, US and Europe.
The fintech is planning to take its gift card issuing service, payments instalment stack, and services around QR code payments immediately to the US and European geographies.
Pine Labs currently operates in five Southeast Asian countries and recently launched operations in the UAE.