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Lender Fibe opens its own UPI app to everyone after NPCI clears it as a third-party provider
The Pune fintech, formerly EarlySalary, wants a daily payments habit on top of its loans and cards, months after getting SEBI's nod for an IPO.
Fibe, the Pune-based digital lending platform formerly known as EarlySalary, has launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments in its app after the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved it as a Third-Party Application Provider, or TPAP, CNBC TV18 and YourStory reported on November 2. A TPAP is a non-bank company allowed to run a consumer UPI app, while partner banks hold the accounts and handle settlement.
The service is open to consumers across India, including people who are not Fibe borrowers. Users can pay from linked bank accounts, from RuPay credit cards and from eligible credit lines linked to UPI, all inside the Fibe app, according to the reports. Group CEO Akshay Mehrotra said the aim is to give users more choice, control and value in every transaction, YourStory reported.
UPI sits on top of a growing product shelf. Fibe already offers the Fibe Axis Bank Credit Card, which it describes as India's first numberless credit card, along with third-party fixed deposits, loans against mutual funds and financing for healthcare, education and rooftop solar, the company said in its announcement. For a lender, a payments app turns an occasional relationship into a daily one.
The launch has been a while coming. In May 2025, Mehrotra told Mint that Fibe had preliminary approval from NPCI and expected to roll out UPI within about three months, as its first direct step into payments. Approvals slowed across the industry after an April 2025 UPI outage: NPCI authorised 13 new third-party UPI apps in 2025, five of them only for a closed user group, against 18 that went fully live in 2024, Business Standard reported, citing sources.
Fibe enters a crowded field with about 45 TPAPs, where PhonePe and Google Pay hold most of the market. The timing also matters for its listing plans: Social Worth Technologies, the TPG, Norwest and Fidelity backed company that operates Fibe, received SEBI approval in September 2026 for a proposed Rs 750 crore IPO, Moneycontrol reported.
