Most people identify Cred as a nifty app for paying credit card bills and earning reward points. While Cred uses this feature as the main hook to reel in users and drive transactions on the platform, it is not the be-all and end-all of its playbook.

Since its launch in late 2018, the Kunal Shah-led fintech has introduced a slew of other offerings: an online brands store where users can spend some of their points, rental payments and peer-to-peer lending. 

The efforts are aimed at creating an ecosystem of services, or a financial supermarket, for high-income consumers and they are tied to the growth in credit cards. In the past year, 10 million new cards have been issued in the country. At this rate, the current base of 70 million will reach 100 million in a few years. 

The premium category of consumers will, in turn, climb from an estimated 35 million to more than 50 million. This is an ideal scenario for Cred. However, building every service or product for the ecosystem from scratch may take years, an impractical timeline for startups. 

Shah knows this, and he has worked out a quicker route: acquisitions.