Project Overview
Rupifi, a leading fintech platform, offers retailers credit lines across wholesale marketplaces like Walmart (Flipkart Wholesale), Nurturefarm, and ApnaKlub via an embedded checkout feature. This solution allows retailers to easily purchase on these platforms using the 'Pay by Rupifi' option. Rupifi wanted to extend the credit line to more users and also understand how to improve the experience of existing users. The credit penetration in India, even among SMEs is a very small number compared to markets like the US and China. Rupifi aims to bridge this credit gap and empower the SMEs to grow without limitations.
5.5%
Credit Card Penetration
in India - Jan 2024
1 25 K+
SMEs powered by
Rupifi Credit Line
14%
MSME Credit Penetration
in India - Jan 2024
150+
Partner Suppliers on
Rupifi Platform
$530 B
MSME Credit Gap
in India - Jan 2024
$700 M+
Credit Disbursed via
Rupifi Credit Line
Role & Team
As the Head of Design at Rupifi I take the lead on 0 to 1 products like this. I collaborated with VP of Product (Videh Ranjan) and worked with our CTO (Jawaid Iqbal) and CEO (Anubhav Jain) to bring this product to life. We also worked very closely with other company leadership to design and develop this product.
Problem Statement
Retailers using Rupifi's embedded credit line for purchases on wholesale marketplaces faced a significant limitation: they could not extend their credit beyond these specific platforms. They rely on multiple suppliers to stock their shops.
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Key Issue: Limited usage of credit lines for only specific wholesale marketplaces
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Business Need: Provide an expanded credit solution that supports both online and offline transactions
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User Challenge: Ensure the solution is intuitive for non-tech-savvy retailers making offline payments.
Goals & Objectives
Based on multiple discussions with stakeholders and brainstorming sessions the key objective was decided - to design an open-ended credit line product for retailers
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Selected Retailers: The OCL will be available to only selected retailers with good credit behavior to avoid credit risk and enable sustainable growth of the product
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Expand Credit Usage: Enable credit line use beyond wholesale marketplaces to include offline and broader purchases.
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Simplify Offline Payments: Ensure a seamless and intuitive process for offline payments
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Enhance User Experience: Create a frictionless, accessible experience for non-tech-savvy retailers, while maintaining secure transactions.
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Reinforce Trust: Highlight Rupifi’s commitment to rewarding retailers with good credit behavior and providing them with enhanced financial flexibility.
" The product name was finalized as INFINI, a wordplay of infinity and finance.
I also worked with all stakeholders and leadership to create the brand identity and basic guidelines for the product."
Research & Insights
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information from this section. The information presented here is my own and indicate key learning from the research.
We conducted user research to understand the user concerns in detail. This included phone calls to the retailers, contextual inquiries, and customer feedback received in the past. The entire leadership, product, and growth team were involved in this research. We were divided into 12 teams of 2-3 members(with at least 1 Kannada-speaking member) and visited selected retailers in Bangalore.
648
Phone call interviews
by customer care team
104
Contextual inquiry
visits by the team
223
Customer feedback from
past calls & playstore
User Persona
Empathy Map
User Research Summary
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Restricted Credit Usage: Retailers wanted more flexibility to use their credit lines for purchases beyond the partnered marketplaces.
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Offline Transaction Complexity: Making offline payments needed to be as easy and accessible as online transactions without requiring complex steps.
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Real-time Payments: Realtime credit payment options are absent from the market as most of the SMEs don't qualify for credit cards. With the advent of UPI the user expectation on the ease of use is very high.
Competitor Analysis
We studied other credit products and payment systems, identifying their key characteristics -
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Flexibility and simplicity were crucial factors in user adoption of financial apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, PayTM etc.
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Platforms offering open-ended credit lines often lacked the ease of offline payment integration
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Most apps had a flow where the user uploads the invoice, requests for the amount to be credited and wait for 4 - 24hrs for payment confirmation
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The interfaces of credit line applications were unique and different from other finance apps thus unfamiliar for most users
Design Process
The main ideology that we followed at Rupifi was to Build Fast and Perfect Later. This enabled us to quickly create solutions, deploy them to a small set of users(beta test), and then use the learning to further improve the solution and release it for the wider audience.
The breakthrough of the project came when we were able to confirm using UPI rails to enable the credit payments. This meant that retailers would be able to make payments to any offline supplier by scanning their UPI QR code and the payment would be processed by the NBFC into the supplier account instantly. The retailers can also make payments via Phone Number, UPI ID(VPA), and Bank Transfer. The UPI rails integration was enabled by the APIs from YesBank.
Information Architecture
Wireframes & Prototyping
We started with low-fidelity wireframes to map out the user journey for transactions. The key challenge was ensuring a frictionless transition from scanning a QR code to making a payment. This was based on the existing Rupifi app which the retailers were using to access the Statement of Accounts(SOA).
The existing app was not native, it was just showing the SOA webpage on the app. The beta solution was created by adding a Scan & Pay button to the bottom menu of the app. This was quickly developed and deployed to 100 selected users, 79 of them were onboarded and started using the product. This helped us to validate the solution and also quickly gather feedback from our users.
Beta Release & Feedback
The 100-user beta release was a success. Some key learning from this were:
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Most retailers were looking for an open-ended credit line to fund their offline purchases, so they were excited to use the product and reduce the burden of cash & carry purchases.
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The users who were not interested didn't rely much on credit and were satisfied with the existing credit offerings integrated into the marketplaces
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Retailers requested us to add other modes of payment. A QR code was not always available with the supplier or they had trouble accessing it. The phone number was a mode they used to make UPI payments.
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For transactions larger than INR 1 Lakh, Bank Transfer option was needed.
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The app was slow and needed a simpler and more intuitive interface. A native app had to be developed to overcome these concerns.
Final Solution
The final design of Infini successfully addressed the core issues faced by retailers:
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Open-ended Credit: Retailers could now use their credit lines for any business purchases, both online and offline.
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Seamless Payment Process: By scanning QR codes or using UPI/Phone Numbers, retailers could make quick, easy payments, just like regular UPI transactions.
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Accessible for Non-tech-savvy Users: The UI was designed with simplicity in mind, leveraging large icons, intuitive workflows, and familiar interactions.
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Recognition Rather than Recall: The UI is very familiar to users of any UPI application. We leveraged familiarity rather than reinventing the wheel.
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No worries: The loan repayment information is shown at the top card helping retailers make repayments on time and without incurring LPC(late payment charges). This is further assisted by the timely notification on the app as well as on WhatsApp channel.
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Easy to Track: The retailers can easily track their transactions, repayments, and any refunds right from the homepage with a single click. The program details or loan terms can also be accessed very easily. This especially helps customers who are using the app to manage credit lines across multiple marketplaces.
User Flows
Results & Impact
The introduction of Infini had a significant impact on both retailers and Rupifi:
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Increase in Credit Utilization: Retailers began using open-ended credit lines for a wider range of transactions, increasing overall credit line usage by 76%
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Positive User Feedback: Retailers appreciated the convenience of offline payments, particularly the QR code functionality which was very intuitive for any UPI app user.
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Enhanced Brand Loyalty: By rewarding good credit behavior with access to Infini, Rupifi was able to build stronger relationships with its most trusted users.
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Unprecedented Growth: In 6 months the monthly credit disbursed through Infini was $7.2 M, which matched the scale of our top marketplace (Flipkart Wholesale).
As of September 2024(10 months since product launch), the metrics are as below:
10219
Transacting Users
(11883 Users Activated)
$9.3 M
Credit Limit Activated
for Retailers
$67.5 M
Cumulative Credit Disbursed to Suppliers
$0.6 M
Revenue Generated
(Interest + Fees)
Learnings & Next Steps
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Iterative User Testing: During the process, we learned that customers were using the credit for personal use as well. This raised eyebrows owing to the latest RBI regulations. We are taking some measures to restrict this and encourage retailers to only do business transactions using infini.
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Collaboration -> Success: To deliver this project with a lean team, myself and the PMs collaborated with several teams to have a successful GTM strategy.
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We worked with the Operations & Collection Team to help us with user research. They helped gather user feedback and insights via calls, visits and past conversation data.
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We also worked with the marketing team and leadership to design the brand identity and communication.
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We also collaborated with an agency to create a hype video to generate interest among potential users. This was distributed via the app and WhatsApp to retailers with the help of markleting team.
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Future Enhancements:
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Explore adding more payment methods and additional security features like biometric authentication for large transactions.
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NACH for repayments
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Introduce the concept of Verified Merchants to create a network of partner merchants/supplier network to subvent the interest (Suppliers get money instantly by passing on some part of the emerging to Rupifi, which is used to discount the interest applied on retailer purchases).
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Introduce a way to verify transactions to be more complaint to latest RBI regulations and NBFC policies. retailers can verify transactions by uploading the invoice or providing the GSTIN of the supplier while making the transaction. This will not be mandatory while making payments to Verified Merchants.
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The credit line can be used for personal use by making self-withdrawals. The self-withdrawal limit is capped at 25% of the credit limit and also doesn't qualify for any rewards.
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