The variety of bank card customers in India has surged in recent times because of the many perks and advantages a bank card affords. As the credit score market grew, people started to personal a couple of bank card, which led to a brand new drawback – managing the billing cycles of all these playing cards. This drawback remained untouched till 2018 when an organization referred to as CRED got here on the scene and revolutionized and even glamorized the idea of bank card invoice funds in India.
Since its launch, CRED has been the market chief in its section, with virtually negligible competitors from different main invoice fee apps like Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay. The equation is altering a bit immediately, as a brand new participant referred to as ‘CheQ‘ has determined to compete straight with CRED whereas making an attempt to emerge as a singular resolution for paying your bank card payments.
Here is an in depth comparability between CRED and CheQ that may show you how to discover the most suitable choice for your bank card funds.
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What gave rise to CRED’s immense reputation?
Before we evaluate CRED and CheQ, you will need to perceive why the idea of a standalone app for bank card invoice funds exists. Before 2018, the solely solution to pay bank card payments was to pay them by means of the financial institution’s web banking portal, cell app, or by bodily visiting the department. While this was simple for somebody with one or two bank cards, for an individual with greater than three playing cards, this method meant whole chaos. The completely different billing cycles and funds by means of completely different portals meant just one factor – inconvenience.
Despite this large drawback, the main fee apps Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay didn’t even provide the choice to pay bank card payments. PhonePe launched bank card invoice funds in January 2018, whereas Paytm did so in September 2018, whereas Google Pay took even longer after they launched their service for the identical in May 2019. These apps did provide the choice to pay bank card payments, however it was only a easy resolution. It didn’t tackle the actual drawback – managing the billing cycles of a number of playing cards.
This is the place CRED received the sport. When it launched in April 2018, the firm promoted itself as the best solution to handle all bank cards and their billing cycles in a single place. And that too solely for individuals with superb credit score scores (extra on that later). CRED developed a singular resolution the place the app may pull your bank card statements out of your emails and textual content messages. In this fashion, the app would acquire particulars similar to the whole quantity due, the minimal quantity due, and the due date of all of your playing cards and give you a dashboard of all of your bank cards.
CRED’s resolution was artistic, revolutionary, and distinctive. Their product was actually good for the Indian market, however that’s not why they gained their reputation. CRED gained the most consideration by means of its quirky commercials, portraying itself as a totally completely different style and by some means connecting that to paying bank card payments at the finish of the industrial. Their greatest promoting marketing campaign was in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2020, the place they increased their customer base by 700% in two months.
CRED is one in all the greatest SaaS developed in India and has set an instance to the world in figuring out an issue and discovering a artistic resolution. In reality, we have now not had a standalone competitor since CRED was launched 5 years in the past. A competitor to CRED was lengthy overdue, and a CRED competitor had change into mandatory in latest months. But why?
Why do we want a competitor for CRED?
At the time of CRED’s launch, everybody was enthusiastic about the app’s stunning design. It was visually interesting and simple to navigate, and the whole app was clearly laid out. The design of the app was one in all the principal causes for utilizing CRED. But what began out as a particular characteristic has now change into an annoyance for most CRED customers – the design!
CRED’s long-term imaginative and prescient was truly to create an unique membership of customers with excessive credit score scores to make them really feel like they belonged to a particular group. In this try, CRED has overloaded the app with so many choices that it has change into very troublesome to navigate the app. While we perceive that these adjustments had been a part of enterprise choices to make earnings, these adjustments weren’t welcomed by the majority of CRED customers.
CRED adjustments its app’s person interface often so that each month once you open the app to pay your invoice, you see new choices, menus, and a totally completely different UI. The Chief Design Officer of CRED, Harish Sivaramakrishnan, has openly admitted that they do that on goal as a result of they need customers to navigate the app as a lot as potential. In this fashion, CRED is making an attempt to get customers to have a look at their retailer, model companions, and different choices.
The allure of the CRED app was that you may open the app, view your bank card invoice and pay with a single click on. That has fully disappeared with latest updates requiring a brand new bank card invoice fee resolution. And so, in latest months, a competitor for CRED has change into mandatory.
What is CheQ?
CheQ is a credit score administration platform that permits you to pay all of your bank card payments in a single place, with a assured 1% reward on each transaction in the type of CheQ chips. These cash will be redeemed for money or branded vouchers from Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and plenty of others. The idea is similar to CRED, with a really acquainted reward system like CRED cash. But the space the place CheQ makes an enormous distinction to CRED is the transparency in the app design and the reward level system. This is the place the final comparability begins.
Important:
CRED vs CheQ: Sign-Up Process
Getting began with each CRED and CheQ is simple and requires minimal documentation. All you want is your PAN quantity, your cell quantity, and your electronic mail tackle. CRED has an eligibility requirement that your Experian Score should be above 750 to hitch CRED. Otherwise, you will be unable to create an account with CRED. Your CRED account will likely be activated instantly after registration if you happen to meet this criterion.
CheQ’s onboarding course of is equally clean, and they don’t have any eligibility standards primarily based in your credit score rating. Anyone with a legitimate PAN card can get began with CheQ. The registration course of takes lower than a minute, and you might be able to pay your bank card payments. CheQ had truly began with a waitlist system throughout its launch on 14th February, however they’ve now opened entry to everybody in lower than per week.
CRED vs CheQ: App Design
The CRED app appears to be like rather more visually interesting and futuristic with its person interface. The design of the app consists of loads of animations, and the app appears to be like very energetic. But sadly, that’s the place the issues begin.
A number of weeks in the past, the residence display screen of the CRED app straight displayed all the saved bank cards and the quantities on them. But as of immediately, the residence display screen exhibits an enormous block that serves as a banner for the ongoing affords with companion manufacturers.
On the different hand, CheQ has a nifty person interface that’s beginner-friendly. The CheQ app’s welcome display screen exhibits you the whole quantity due for all of your bank cards and lists every of your playing cards’ excellent balances individually. So as quickly as you open the app, you’ll get a transparent thought of your present whole debt.
While CRED is not only a bank card invoice fee service, it additionally affords you the choice to pay common payments similar to cell recharge, DTH, electrical energy, and extra with CRED Pay. There are too many choices in the app once you evaluate the precise variety of options that the app affords. CheQ is presently restricted to bank card invoice funds solely and therefore has solely three menus in the app – Home, Pay, and Rewards.
CRED and CheQ are on fully reverse sides of the spectrum in relation to the shade of the app. CRED is simply out there in darkish mode, the place the whole app background is pitch black. CheQ, on the different hand, is simply out there in gentle mode, the place the background shade of the whole app is white. In each apps, there is no such thing as a possibility to modify between gentle and darkish themes.
When it involves navigation inside the app, CheQ clearly wins the race with its simplicity. One may argue that CRED affords further options like invoice fee that make the app appear cluttered. However, in our expertise, CRED had a a lot better person interface in the previous that was simpler to navigate than the present model. CheQ is forward of the sport right here.
CRED vs CheQ: Features Comparison
While CRED started as a standalone bank card invoice fee service, immediately, the firm has expanded its companies to incorporate invoice funds, reloads, UPI funds, bank card rental funds, CRED Mint for P2P lending, and extra. There can be a devoted retailer the place customers should buy life-style merchandise similar to trend, electronics, and even meals and beverage. One can even ebook home and worldwide journeys by means of the Travel part.
The CheQ app presently solely helps bank card invoice funds. It additionally exhibits your Experian Score on the homepage. Beyond that, CheQ doesn’t provide some other companies. But then, that’s how CRED began too!
However, the CheQ app has a characteristic that means that you can delete your CheQ account with a single click on completely. If you wish to delete your CRED account, the course of shouldn’t be so easy, as CRED requires you to contact customer support by way of in-app assist, as there is no such thing as a one-click technique to delete your CRED account.
It is vital to notice that the one-click account deletion possibility in CheQ is simply out there in the iOS app. This possibility shouldn’t be presently out there in the Android app.
The CheQ app has the main drawback you could not delete a bank card after you will have added it to the app. CRED, on the different hand, allows you to seamlessly take away and delete any bank card out of your account. However, this isn’t but potential with CheQ.
In phrases of options, CRED is certainly superior to CheQ because it affords many value-added companies at the expense of a cluttered person interface. Otherwise, each CRED and CheQ have all the pieces you want to obtain the principal objective: paying bank card payments.
CRED vs CheQ: Rewards Comparison
CRED’s reward system consists of CRED cash which are credited to your CRED account primarily based in your bill quantity. For instance, for each Rs.1 you pay in your bank card invoice, you’ll obtain 1 CRED coin. You can use these CRED cash to gather coupons for companion manufacturers inside the CRED app. The draw back is that almost all of the companion manufacturers are both startups or lesser-known firms that you could have by no means heard of. Remember that that is the solely means to make use of your CRED cash, as they can’t be redeemed for money.
However, CRED does provide cashback in small quantities for any bank card fee over Rs. 1000. Once you full the fee, you’ll obtain 5 free spins, the place you’ll normally obtain Rs.1 to Rs.5 cashback. This quantity is saved in your CRED account as CRED money and can be utilized in your subsequent invoice fee.
CheQ’s reward scheme is rather more enticing because it affords assured 1% cashback in the type of CheQ chips. For each Rs. 100 you pay on CheQ in the direction of your bank card invoice, you’ll obtain 1 Cheq Chip. These CheQ chips are rather more useful in direct comparability with CRED cash.
CheQ chips can be utilized to redeem branded vouchers, the place 1 CheQ chip = 0.5 rupee. Brand companions embrace Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon Prime Subscription, Ola, Uber, BigBasket, Blinkit, BookMyShow, Dominos, PVR, TataCliq, Croma, and plenty of extra.
CheQ chips will also be redeemed straight for money, the place 4 CheQ chips = 1 Rupee. If we convert the CheQ rewards proportion, you’ll get flat 0.5% cashback in the above-branded vouchers, OR, you possibly can select to get flat 0.25% cashback straight in money once you pay the bank card invoice on CheQ.
Note:
You can earn a most of 4000 CheQ Chips each month.
The rewards in CheQ are far superior to CRED as of now. But contemplating that they’re very new in the market, we aren’t positive how lengthy they are going to have the ability to maintain these profitable rewards. Users ought to notice that CheQ already revised its rewards per week in the past. Until final week, the app was in a beta stage the place the worth of 1 CheQ Chip = 1 Rupee, however as of now, it has been depreciated to 1 CheQ Chip = 0.5 Rupee. Even after this transformation, CheQ seems to be outperforming CRED in relation to rewards.
CRED vs CheQ: Which is extra dependable?
CRED has been in the market for 5 years, and the utility has constructed a sturdy popularity of immediately crediting the quantity to the financial institution as soon as paid in the app. CRED says that every one of their funds are processed inside quarter-hour, which is true from our expertise. We have witnessed invoice funds being processed and deposited in the bank card in as quick as 15 seconds.
On the different hand, CheQ has been taking a little bit longer to deposit the fee to the bank card. Although we have now solely used CheQ solely for a short time, the quickest deposit we skilled was of 8 hours. We examined CheQ with ICICI, HDFC, and Axis Bank bank cards.
CheQ took 8 hours to deposit the quantity into ICICI Bank, round 12 hours for HDFC financial institution, and it took two whole days for CheQ to finish the invoice fee deposit in Axis Bank. From our expertise thus far, CheQ has not been as quick as CRED. But the good factor is that every one the transactions had been accomplished with none points. We didn’t face issues with refunds or declined funds.
Other than that, the solely drawback we confronted with CheQ was that it didn’t acknowledge the OneCard after we tried so as to add it to the app. We are usually not positive of the actual purpose for this, however we are able to speculate that CheQ is simply in a position to course of invoice funds from bank cards from tier 1 banks like HDFC, ICICI, SBI, Axis, and others, as we have now not had any points with any of those financial institution playing cards.
CRED vs CheQ: The Privacy War
CRED and CheQ are wonderful options that present an incredible comfort for individuals who have a number of bank cards. However, the means these apps work entails accessing a few of your private information, which could be a trigger for concern for some.
CRED collects your bank card statements in two methods – as soon as by way of electronic mail and as soon as by way of SMS. Although the app asks for your permission to entry your emails and SMS beforehand, right here’s what occurs in the background. CRED is ready to learn all of your emails and SMS, together with your different monetary transactions that aren’t remotely associated to your bank card.
This solely raises privateness considerations as a specific app is ready to learn all of your emails. This info can be utilized to construct your monetary profile primarily based in your spending habits and ship you focused affords in the CRED app. While CRED says that they’re very safe and that it’s protected to provide them entry to your emails, the idea of an app having the ability to learn your entire emails raises some alarm bells.
However, these are usually not accusations we’re making in opposition to CRED. If you learn CRED’s privateness coverage, they point out themselves that if you happen to give CRED permission to learn your emails, they’ll acquire different monetary and transactional information out of your emails to create higher affords for you.
CheQ, on the different hand, solely reads your SMS to retrieve your bank card statements for now. However, there’ll quickly be the same characteristic to CRED that may permit bank card statements to be retrieved straight out of your emails if you happen to give your permission. And, you could have guessed it, CheQ’s privateness coverage says the identical factor – if you happen to give your consent to learn your emails, they’ll learn different monetary emails to make higher affords.
We additionally observed that some elements of CheQ’s privateness coverage are word-for-word copies of CRED’s privateness coverage. Well…
CRED vs CheQ: Verdict
If we evaluate CRED and CheQ primarily based on the ease of paying your bank card payments, CRED has an enormous benefit with its quicker transaction processing occasions and fast deposits to the financial institution. But CRED’s rewards system simply shouldn’t be nearly as good in comparison with CheQ. If you worth higher rewards, then CheQ is the proper selection for you because it affords flat 0.5% cashback in the type of vouchers for Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Uber, and so on. You even have the choice to convert rewards straight into money, which is a flat 0.25% cashback.
Both apps have their very own privateness points. CheQ wants to enhance on key options like the potential to delete saved playing cards and the choice to clear your account in the Android app. CRED is a quicker possibility for paying payments, however the cluttered person interface takes some getting used to.
In our opinion, as of writing this text, we might advocate CRED if you would like quicker and extra dependable deposits. However, if you would like higher rewards, CheQ is the better option for you!
