13 · Sources & Method
Where does each number come from, and how sure are we?
Public data covers the market side well. The overlap side needs a survey and, later, CRED's own cohort totals.
reported
Straight from RBI, NPCI or CIBIL.
derived
Arithmetic on reported numbers — share, spend per card.
modeled
Built on assumptions: overlap, personas, affinity.
Data
Sources and refresh cadence
| Source | What it gives | Cadence | Feeds | Refreshed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RBI bank-wise ATM/POS/Card statisticsreported | Credit cards outstanding, PoS and e-com volume and value per bank | Monthly | Screens 1, 2 | Jul 2026 |
| RBI entity-wise UPI / BBPS statisticsreported | Bill-pay and UPI volumes by operating unit | Monthly | Screen 4 | Jul 2026 |
| RBI PPI statistics and NEFT bank-wisereported | Wallet usage; NEFT as a proxy for bank-app bill-pay intensity | Monthly | Screen 4 (context) | Jul 2026 |
| NPCI UPI ecosystem statisticsreported | App-wise UPI share | Monthly | Screen 4 | May 2026 |
| TransUnion CIBIL reportsreported | Unique cardholders, cards per holder, delinquency | Quarterly | Screens 1, 3 | Mar 2026 |
| Primary surveymodeled | Bill-pay channel, apps used, issuer, income, CRED status | Quarterly | Screens 3, 4, 5 | Jun 2026 |
| Meta / Google ad plannersmodeled | Audience sizes per persona spec | On demand | Screens 5, 6 | Jul 2026 |
| CRED internal (V2)modeled | Cohort totals by issuer and city tier | Monthly | Screens 1, 3, 4 | Jul 2026 |
Ledger
Every assumption, and exactly how we got to it
| Assumption | Value | Source | How we got there | Confidence | Replaced when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cards in force | 121.6M | RBI bank-wise card statistics, Jul 2026 | Reported directly. Counts cards issued and not closed — including dormant, duplicate and corporate plastic. | High | Nothing — this is a reported figure |
| Cards per cardholder | 2.1x (dial) | CIBIL credit-active population vs RBI card count, plus the 2026 survey | Unique cardholders = cards in force divided by this. Small changes here swing the whole base by millions. | Medium | CIBIL unique-borrower counts filtered to card trade lines |
| Share of cards actually used | 62% (dial) | Issuer investor disclosures and analyst notes; RBI does not publish activity rates | A card with no transaction in 90 days cannot be converted — the holder has already decided. This is the single biggest correction in V2. | Low | Issuer-level active-card disclosure, or CRED own-cohort activity data |
| Share of cardholders above 750 | 52% (dial) | CIBIL score-band distribution across the credit-active population | Applied after the active-card filter to get the addressable base. Below 750 the reward economics do not work. | Medium | CIBIL score-band cut restricted to card holders |
| CRED penetration by issuer | 3% to 48% | 2026 survey, n=38 pilot | Issuer cards x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among that issuer active prime holders. A 38-person pilot cannot carry this; treat every bank number as directional. | Low | CRED own cohort totals by issuer |
| CRED monthly active base | 11.0M | Public reporting and company statements, 2021-2026 | Used as the CRED line on the issuer trend chart and as the subtrahend in headroom. Definitions of active vary between sources. | Low | CRED internal MAU series on a single definition |
| Virgin prime on CRED | Stated as 0% | Definition, not measurement | This segment is defined as prime cardholders who have never joined CRED, so its CRED penetration is 0 by construction. It is not a finding that no prime user has joined — the real question is how many prime holders sit outside, and the survey has not sized that reliably. | Not applicable | A sized survey cell: prime holders, never-joined, as a share of all prime holders |
| Targetability tier boundaries | 4 tiers | Judgement, applied to the survey and score bands | Tiers split on activity, score, and whether a competing habit already owns the bill. Boundaries are arguable and deliberately visible. | Low | Conversion data by tier once the first campaigns run |
| 750+ universe, card or no card | ~24M prime with no card | CIBIL score-band distribution over the credit-active population | Prime-by-score people without a card are invisible to RBI card data entirely. Sized from score bands minus the carded prime base. | Low | CIBIL score band crossed with card ownership |
| Live ad audit | 8 campaigns | Meta and Google public ad libraries, third-party ad trackers, Jul 2026 | Public libraries show creatives, not spend, impressions or performance. Scores are a craft judgement against a fixed checklist, not a performance verdict. | Low | CRED own ad-account data |
Working
How CRED penetration was calculated, bank by bank
| Bank | Cards | Active cards | Share of CRED members | Penetration | Confidence | Method note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HDFC Bank | 26.97M | 18.34M(68%) | 80.6% | 34% | high | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| SBI Card | 22.76M | 12.97M(57%) | 55.4% | 12% | high | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| ICICI Bank | 19.69M | 12.80M(65%) | 74.1% | 26% | high | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Axis Bank | 16.26M | 10.41M(64%) | 73.5% | 24% | high | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Kotak Mahindra | 6.12M | 3.79M(62%) | 69.1% | 21% | medium | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| IndusInd Bank | 6.02M | 3.61M(60%) | 68.8% | 19% | medium | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| RBL Bank | 5.42M | 2.93M(54%) | 53.8% | 9% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| IDFC First Bank | 3.51M | 2.04M(58%) | 65.7% | 16% | medium | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Bank of Baroda | 4.08M | 1.88M(46%) | 45.0% | 6% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Yes Bank | 3.10M | 1.71M(55%) | 63.6% | 14% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| American Express | 1.62M | 1.26M(78%) | 71.6% | 48% | medium | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Standard Chartered | 1.04M | 0.75M(72%) | 63.3% | 31% | medium | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Federal Bank | 1.58M | 0.82M(52%) | 57.2% | 11% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Canara Bank | 1.49M | 0.66M(44%) | 35.0% | 4% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| Punjab National Bank | 1.12M | 0.47M(42%) | 29.8% | 3% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
| AU Small Finance Bank | 1.02M | 0.49M(48%) | 52.1% | 7% | low | Cards base x active-card share x 750+ share x the CRED share observed among active prime holders of this issuer in the 2026 survey. |
Dials
Assumptions and their current values
- Cards per cardholder2.1 x
CIBIL average; drives the cards-to-people conversion on every screen.
- Share of cardholders above 75052%
Share of unique cardholders with a CIBIL score of 750 or above. This is the quality filter on the base — below 750 a member is hard to underwrite and hard to reward.
- Share of cards actually used62%
Cards with at least one transaction in the last 90 days. RBI does not publish this; issuer disclosures and analyst notes put it between 55 and 70 percent. Everything below this line is the base we can realistically target.
- Cardholders paying inside the bank app58%
Survey-led; the weakest number on the dashboard until CRED cohort data lands.
- Cardholders paying via a UPI super-app34%
From the bill-pay channel question in the survey.
- Re-invite conversion14%
Share of a re-invited cohort that becomes active within a quarter.
- Win-back conversion7%
Share of a lapsed cohort reactivated by a campaign.
- Cold acquisition conversion4%
Share of newly reached cardholders that become active.
Changelog
What changed and when
15 Jul 2026
July 2026 RBI refresh
Bank-wise card and spend figures updated; HDFC crosses 26.9M cards, SBI Card net adds lead the market.
5 Jun 2026
Survey pilot
38-response pilot used to shape persona definitions. Treated as signal, not sample.
20 May 2026
NPCI May share
UPI app share updated: PhonePe 46.3%, Google Pay 32.8%, CRED 0.7%.
31 Mar 2026
CIBIL cardholder base
Unique cardholders revised to 52M at ~2.1 cards each.
Honesty
Risks worth saying out loud
- Cards are not customers. RBI counts cards per bank, not people. Unique holders are modeled from the cards-per-holder average.
- The overlap is the weakest number. Until CRED shares cohort totals by issuer, the Venn and the heatmap are survey-led estimates. Treat them as directional.
- Survey bias. A 38-person pilot is a signal, not a sample. Screens 3 to 5 need 1,500+ respondents with quotas by city tier and issuer.
- CRED funnel figures are internal working numbers and get replaced by CRED’s own cohort totals in V2.