Over the past decade, FinTech startups are growing tremendously in the Indian market. Apart from online transactions, people use it for credits too. Recently, you must have observed a huge buzz for CheQ. Do you know the reason behind it? How is it surpassing CRED in terms of fame and user base? You will get answers to all the queries in this article. Here, we will provide thorough information about “What is CheQ? The new & real competitor of CRED.”
What is CheQ?
CheQ Digital Pvt Ltd is a FinTech start-up based in Bengaluru (Karnataka). Aditya Soni (the founder) launched this platform in 2022. The prime objective of this credit repayment platform was to simplify the discovery and management of credit products for you so that you can take loans and repayment rewards. Is it possible? Yes! Because it allows you to pay your credit card bills, loan EMIs, and similar stuff on a single platform. Simply, its motto is “Pay together” multiple bills, one payment. Similar to CRED, it also rewards its loyal credit card users who pay their bills on time through the CheQ app.
Also, you can earn 1% back CheQ chips for every payment. Thereby, you can redeem those chips either for vouchers from your favorite brands or you can directly convert them into cash.
It is a B2C credit management platform that recently raised $10 million in the capital in its seed round. It is looking forward to broadening its operating segments by investing in advanced technologies.
Its key investors are 3one4 Capital, Venture Highway, Multiply Ventures, Mars Shot Ventures, and Veda VC.
Features of CheQ
A start-up receives fame and a user-base expansion only if its features are highly alluring and better than its contemporaries. Similar is the case with CheQ. It surpassed its competitors due to the following features-
CheQ App
This flagship app is available on both android and iOS from which you can download it. You can use this app to repay your credits or loans. . If you download the CheQ app right now, you will be on the waitlist. You can unlock the early access of the app only if you refer it to two more users to install this app. This is a smart strategy to expand their user base.
With efficient technical expertise, they made this app that works smoothly on any kind of smartphone. Even though it acts as a bridge facilitating the transaction between a customer and a bank. But the best part is “rewards.” You can win a reward every time you repay your credits through this app. This app rewards you through CheQ chips. The latter one is described in the next section.
CheQ Chips
This is the principal attraction of this credit repayment platform. CheQ Chips are nothing but in-app currency. You receive it as a reward for every payment on this app. The company is incentivizing the early users by offering 100 CheQ Chips as a signup bonus and additional 100 chips on every referral. You can redeem these Chips for vouchers from the top 40 brands of our country. Do you know what the cherry on this platform is?
It is the conversion of CheQ Chips into cash (Indian currency). Here 1 CheQ chip is worth INR 01.00. Also, you will get 1% Flat Cashback in your CheQ App account if you pay the credit bill through it. Eventually, you can directly save the chips in banks in the form of the Indian rupee. Isn’t it amazing? You may find it better than CRED coins! We will discuss it in the “Comparison” section.
Credit Report
You can access and monitor your credit score on the personalized dashboard. Here you will get key insights into your credit health.
CheQ Safe
This feature of the app reminds you to pay your bills on a timely basis without paying any penalty or extra interest. It auto-updates the due dates and the bill amounts.
Bank Grade Security
This is the spinal cord feature of the app that determines whether the app is safe to use or not. It encrypts all the transactions and data to ensure highly secured payments and transaction experience for its users. Also, it saves your cards as per RBI guidelines.
Banking partners
As you know, Bank-FinTech collaborations are redefining the financial sector of India. Therefore, these collaborations are getting stronger day by day. Currently, the banking partners of CheQ are Axis Bank and ICICI Bank.
The reaction of the Public
CheQ launched its beta program which received an impressive positive reaction from the public. More than 7,000 active users made more than 45,000 transactions within a short span. Hence, this figure surpassed the original goal of the company to onboard 500 users. This response from the public conferred a huge boost in the confidence of the company and also aided in the expansion of the user base. Also, the users redeemed more than 16,000 vouchers from Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, and Zomato. The remarkable feature of this platform i.e., 1 CheQ Chip = 1.00 Rupee won the heart of the public. Because they find it extremely useful and trustworthy.
Comparison between CheQ and CRED
Now, here comes the most important part of the article. Why and how CheQ is the new and real competitor of CRED? You will see many distinct characteristics of both fintech companies in the following table that make CheQ a tough competitor of CRED.
| S.No. | Characteristic feature | CheQ | CRED |
| 1. | Coin/Chip Type- redeemable to Indian Rupee | Yes | No |
| 2. | Stability | Not confirmed yet (newly launched product) | Well-stable (Good user experience) |
| 3. | Trustworthiness | Not confirmed yet (newly launched product) | Trustworthy (because it was launched in 2021) |
| 4. | User Preference | High (Due to redeemable CheQ chips) | Low (Users don’t find Cred coins much useful) |
As you can see both the CheQ and CRED offer similar characteristic features but there are significant differences too. Due to the redeemable feature the CheQ chips are preferred by users. However, despite non-redeemable CRED coins, some users still prefer it because it is an old product that has already offered a stable experience to the users. Hence, the final judgment is not out yet! The competition is still going on.
Conclusion
CheQ is thriving to help customers to improve their credit health by making it easily trackable and manageable for credit payments, BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later), and credit cards on a single platform. Also, it offers numerous awards in the form of chips. The conversion of these chips directly into the Indian rupee plays a crucial role in the user base expansion. People found the chips quite better than CRED coins. Thus, CheQ is emerging as a winner among its contemporaries like CRED, BharatPe, One Score, etc.
