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Cred just reported its first profitable quarter. Meta invested 8,500 crore rupees. And Kunal Shah walked out the door.

Eight years of questions about Cred's business model ended the moment it finally had answers. The design-first, exclusivity-obsessed fintech that rewarded creditworthy Indians with gold credit cards now makes most of its money from lending — the same way every other UPI app does.

Shah left for WhatsApp. Meta needed someone who could monetise a billion Indian users without making regulators nervous.

What that means for both companies is the more interesting question.

Scripted by Snigdha Sharma based on the report by Suprita Anupam.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.