Can someone explain clearly what the Kiwi Credit Card is all about? I read that it works with UPI, but how exactly does that function? Do I just link it in the Kiwi app and pay via UPI like normal, while the spending gets billed as credit later?
I picked up the Kiwi Credit Card like 6 months ago because the UPI thing sounded pretty awesome, but man, it definitely doesn’t work the way you think it would. Kiwi does let you pay through UPI but you’re stuck using only their app, can’t use GPay or PhonePe at all which really pissed me off since I figured I could just add it to my normal payment apps like everyone else.
Sometimes Kiwi would spam me with fancy UPI promises (smooth payments or whatever bullshit) but what I actually got was way more annoying than what they advertised.
| How Kiwi UPI really worked in my daily life | What I thought would happen | What actually went down | My real everyday experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adding to Google Pay (Using it like regular UPI) | Should be super simple | Total disaster | GPay basically laughed at me, said card not supported |
| Using their app for UPI (Kiwi’s own payment thing) | Last resort backup | Kinda worked but sucked | Had to use their laggy app instead of my usual GPay |
| How charges showed up (Credit billing process) | Should happen automatically | Actually worked fine | UPI payments appeared as credit card charges later |
| Spending limits (How much I could pay via UPI) | Expected normal amounts | Pretty limited | Way lower limits than regular UPI which was annoying |
| How fast payments worked (Transaction processing speed) | Should be instant like UPI | Sometimes really slow | Kiwi app was way slower than GPay for everything |
Bullshit I had to deal with using Kiwi’s UPI system:
- Completely trapped using only their stupid app couldn’t add to any normal UPI apps that everyone actually uses.
- Their app was garbage compared to GPay and would crash during payments sometimes.
- Friends couldn’t split bills with me through their usual apps since Kiwi UPI is weird and different.
- Had to explain to confused shopkeepers why my UPI looked different from everyone else’s.
So in short: Kiwi lets you do UPI payments but forces you to use their terrible app instead of GPay or PhonePe the credit billing part works fine but being stuck with their crappy app instead of normal UPI apps everyone uses really sucks for daily payments.
