Slice’s Founded in 2016 by Rajan Bajaj, Slice offers credit and payment cards (in partnership with Visa and SBM Bank), targeting young consumers with limited to no credit history.
Recently, the fintech unicorn rolled out its UPI payments product, shifting its focus from providing credit to offering overall payments, which puts it in competition with , , Google Pay, and BHIM, among others.
Yet to turn profitable, Slice claims to have five million registered users on its platform. It offers credit lines, starting from Rs 10,000 and going all the way up to Rs 10 lakh.
According to its latest figures, Slice’s losses jumped 394 percent to Rs 8.9 crore in FY21, while its revenue from operations grew around 18 percent to Rs 35.3 crore. Further, the fintech unicorn reported a 34 percent (Rs 47.8 crore) increase in its expenses.
Read Note: RBI: NON-BANKS CAN NOT LOAD CREDIT LINES INTO ‘PPI’
Bad News for Slice
Slice is among the group of fintech likely to be impacted by the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recent direction barring non-bank lenders from loading credit lines into prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), typically e-wallets.
The move spells trouble for NBFC credit line-linked wallets and prepaid cards that allowed Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) features, including Slice, , , PostPe, , Ola Postpaid, , and some neo-banks.
While using credit lines to top up prepaid cards is becoming a popular way for fintech to operate in the BNPL segment, the RBI is not pleased with this arrangement and believes that PPIs cannot be used as a credit instrument.
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In April 2022, in a master direction on credit and debit cards, RBI said that for co-branded cards (like Slice), the role of the co-branding partner entity shall be limited to marketing and distribution of the cards. Additionally, the co-branding partner shall not have access to information relating to transactions undertaken through the card.