Get to know the hidden T&Cs and fine prints of Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd and other credit line cards before applying for them.Nowadays, credit line cards such as Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd cards are doing a lot of marketing and positioning themselves as alternatives to credit cards. Therefore, why not look at some of their fine print and understand how they are different from traditional credit cards. Probably, then you would be in a better position to decide whether you should apply or not.
Slice PostPe Uni 1/3rd– what are they?
These are credit line cards or challenger cards that split the bill in 3 or more instalments. Their names also make that intent very clear. SliceIt – indicates slice your bills. PostPe – indicates pay it later. Uni 1/3rd card – clearly indicates pay in 3 instalments. These cards are targeted towards a segment of customers who are generally not eligible for credit cards.
A quick comparison table of Slice, PostPe and Uni 1/3 cards is below. It highlights that these cards are a collaboration of 3 companies coming together and offering a credit card like product.
What are the charges and fine print associated with Slice, PostPe and Uni 1/3rd cards?
Charges
The thing here is late payment fee itself can be substantial for the amount outstanding. In addition, there could be interest charges also. Thus, whether it’s credit cards or pseudo credit cards, if you don’t pay on time, the late fee and interest payments will screw you.
Fine Print/ Hidden T&Cs
SliceIt
I found quite a few strange T&Cs to get a Slice card. Listed below are a few of them
- You need to link your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts in Slice app
- The app takes your friend’s or reference’s contact number. The reason stated is “Your friend’s or reference’s number helps us reach out to you in case we are not able to reach out to you directly”. However, let’s face it; it will be used for recovery purposes in case you default on your payments.
- Below is the kind of permission the Slice app needs on your mobile and whats more strange is you cant use the app if you revoke any of these permissions.
- The strangest thing was this statement “if someone uses your promotion code, we may associate your name with that person and their usage of the Portal”. What it means is if I refer someone and that person defaults, he/she can be associated with me. A big red flag to people sharing their referral code widely on social media.
PostPe
Not that only SliceIt has such requirements. Even PostPe takes a lot of data from user’s mobile
They even may ask you for a compulsory NACH mandate from your bank account for repayment.
How does Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd cards differ from credit cards?
Credit cards in India are issued by banks. However, these challenger cards are a collaboration of 3 companies coming together, to create a credit card like product. The 3 companies are as follows:
Fintech/Technology Company – This fintech will have the technical expertise to develop such a product. More important than that, it has lots of cash from VCs.
Financier/NBFC – Since the fintech cannot do lending by regulation. It needs to tie up with an NBFC to give loans to customers. In case, you happen to have any of these cards. The credit enquiry against your name will be from one of these NBFCs. For example, I have Uni 1/3rd card, but on my credit report name of the lender is NDX P2P, because that company has given me a loan.
Card Issuer/Bank –The fintech has arranged an NBFC to give loans. However, they need a card issuer so that payments can be made anywhere and everywhere. Else, what’s the use, right? Thus they tie up with a card issuer, which is typically a bank. However, the card these banks issue is not a debit or credit card, it’s a prepaid card or store value card. The most simple examples of prepaid cards are the Sodexo card that some of us get from the employer or the forex cards that we buy when travelling abroad.
Does the service/features differ for Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd cards and credit cards?
Yes. Below are some of the differences between these challenger credit cards and real credit cards
Grievance redressal In case of issues with your credit cards, you can reach out to 24×7 banks’ call centers and get it sorted. However, in the case of credit line cards things can get a bit tricky. Nevertheless, the fintech companies have a customer care helpline but it may not be available 24×7. For example, the Slice call centre is operational only Monday-Friday.
Or they may choose not to mediate in disputes between you and Merchant/Lenders, below are the snapshots from Uni 1/3rd and PostPe’s T&Cs.
In my view, this can be of serious concern when you want to block your card, report a fraudulent transaction or dispute the same or there is some error in reporting to credit bureaus. As these companies may choose not to mediate in such cases.
Credit period Credit cards offer a free credit period of 12-18 days post bill generation. Thus, you have ample time to pay off the bill. However, Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd cards only give 3-5 days to pay off the bills. This is too short a period. The probability of you missing the payment date is higher in this case.
International acceptability You can use credit cards to make payments in foreign exchange, either when travelling to a foreign country or shopping online. However, these credit line cards cannot be used to make payments in foreign currency.
No cash withdrawal thru ATM Slice, PostPe, Uni 1/3rd don’t allow cash withdrawal thru ATM. However, some of these cards allow transferring a part of your credit limit to a bank account for a fee, but no cash withdrawal is allowed.
Acceptability issues I have faced some acceptability issues on Uni 1/3rd card, especially when loading money to my wallet accounts. Not sure if such issues exist with Slice, PostPe. Such things never happen with credit cards. If a merchant accepts, say Visa credit card, then all Visa credit cards work without exception.
Conclusion
The idea behind highlighting the fine prints and kind of permissions these apps take is not to dissuade you from applying for these cards but to make you aware of what you are getting into. You need to make the final decision whether you are okay with that.
If you ask me, will I apply for these cards, knowing these things? The answer is an absolute NO. However, I already have a Uni card and I am seriously contemplating closing it.
As my friend rightly tweeted here, be cautious with these cards. My 2 cents, for someone who already has a credit card from any bank, he/she can safely avoid these cards. For someone who needs to build a credit score or needs a credit card equivalent product, I suggest exploring secured credit cards such as Kotak 811, OneCard Lite and others.
Are you okay with the kind of permissions these apps ask for, do share your view? Also share your user experience, if you have used any of these cards
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Thanks for the article. I’m holding both Slice & Postpe at the moment. Slice is giving out good offers nowadays known as Spark, so I guess I’ll hold on to it. But Postpe I applied only for the sake of holding a new card and trying it out. I probably won’t use it much unless they have some sort of specific offer. Would you advise holding these cards if no usage?
Also, a slight correction that Postpe offers 1% cashback (increases based on the number of referrals each month, but this gets reset back to 1% at the start of the following month) but it is capped.
Hey Jihad AJ, as i said if I hold other credit cards than dont see much use of these cards. If the intention is to capitalise on offers, one can do so. But get rid of them once you notice offers drying out.
On cashback on Postpe, the referral bonus is only for the month in which your friends get approved. So if your friend gets approved on 20th, then referral bonus is only for 10 days. And back to 0 at start of next month. So thats why i mentioned its non existent. Almost next to impossible to have 5 referrals every month like a treadmill
Also curious to know why both? If the intention is to build credit history then even one will do
If people have a credit card from bank then they don’t need to hold it. However considering less than 4% Indians have credit cards and these companies are not targeting those customers, there will be many takers for the card, offers being there or not. It’s the capability of the fin techs to underwrite customers better that sets them apart from the banks who have failed to address the growing credit needs of most Indians.
Agree to most parts.
However, only place i differ is “fintechs have better capabilities to underwrite customers”.
My belief is these fintechs have cushion of capital, shareholders willing to fund losses and no regulator sitting on their head; thus they are willing to take risks that a bank wont take.
I’m a slice user from a few months but now I’m contemplating looking at their permissions!
Hey Crusinblu you can share more insights as to whether you had to link your FB or LinkedIn profile with your Slice account? Also, the kind of access the app has in your mobile
The biggest reason I’m using Slice is because it is the only card providing 2% cashback. As long as you accumulate 5 lac monies, 1Rs spend = 1 money, you can get 2% cashback on all monies 5 lac and above. No other credit card provides such deep discounts.
If rewards is the only criterion for using Slice, then I may suggest Axis Ace credit card. Gives 2% cashback on all spends and 5% cashback on bill payments without capping.
IDFC Bank First Credit Card is offering 2.5% cashback for transactions above Rs.20000 in a month.
Your information was really helpful even though i use a secured credit card ,i wanted to try these credit line cards but after your post on their terms & condiotions i backed off
I am student and I wanted to take Sliceit Card but now I am hesitant after reading the post. Should I go with it as I have no credit history to build credit score…And also is it easy to close these cards ?
You have option of secured credit card like Kotak811, Onecard lite etc. Your FD can be as low as 20k. Other option is in case your parents have Citi credit card, take a addon card. Citi reports addon cards separately to bureau. So your history will get built.
With these cards, no harm in using it, as long as you are comfortable giving the required permissions.
One thing someone suggested in the comments is using a dummy phone to signup and then in your actual phone disable the permissions and the apps still works.
I have zero permissions enabled and the app still works. I would suggest using a dummy phone during Sign Up
Hi CreditCardz,
Thanks for summarizing. It’s a crispy article.
I’ve one doubt here –
What model does Slice and Uni follow? Either it’s a BNPL(Buy Now Pay Later) or FLDG(First Loan Default Guarantee) model?
Can you please help me understand this? I know that Postpe is working on the lines of BNLP but wanted to know how Slice and Uni work?
Hey Prash, there can be am overlap between fldg and bnpl.
Bnpl is what you offer to customers. And fldg is what you offer to your lending partners. So very well there could be an overlap. However, i am not aware if slice or uni offer any fldg to their lending partners.
Very useful.. I took slice card 2 months back, and uni card a few days back. After reading this post, closed the uni card immediately and I’ve written to slice to close my account.
Zapped, however I remember to have nullified all the permissions for the slice app and it’s running smoothly on my phone. Also have been using card without any issue…
In my case also, I have provided zero permissions to slice and it is working perfectly! Though now much more wary of slice, but the slice feature of slicing monthly bill to 3 months is a lifesaver sometimes, and also the sparks are great at times – but rewards are lessening over time
Hello,
I couldn’t find the source of these terms being talked about. Checked https://www.sliceit.com/terms and couldn’t find it. Could you please share the source? Thank you!
Hey Pranav, for slice the FB/Linked thing is mentioned in the FAQs section of the website. Permissions etc are from the privacy policy
Hello,
I have signed up for Slice,. I don’t see the LinkedIn connection at all.
Could you share the link to the privacy policy please? Cause I can’t seem to find these in the terms at least.
Below in FAQs they talk about linking correct FB and LinkedIn profile
https://help.sliceit.com/hc/en-in/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=LinkedIn
Below is the privacy policy link that talks about permissions
https://www.sliceit.com/privacy
All the links are from sliceit website
My question is do these cards actually affect the CIBIL score if I pay in a timely manner? Particulary curious about Sliceit
Yes. UNI, Slice and PostPe’s lending partner report the repayment behaviour to bureaus.
So regular repayment does lead to improvement in credit score
Postpe seems to have transaction limits on the cards they issue irrespective of the limit you set on the card. They have a monthly transaction limit and a yearly transaction limit on the cards they issue.
Thats strange! So basically the high limits thats highlighted become superficial as one may not be able spend that much
Fantastic article. Helped me stay away from Credit Line cards. Long live Amex, HDFC, Citi (soon becoming Axis?)
I closed down my Uni card but that is shown as two accounts and both are active in CIBIL report. Struggling to get it rectified. Their first response is they are sorry to see me go. Then they reply that THEY ARE UNABLE TO DELETE ALL MY DATA IN THEIR DATABASE. then they start with first response.
Complain to RBI NBFC Ombudsmen,with all the information ( attached their mail too). They’ll have to close the card.
NBFC Ombudsmen Email Id – crpc@rbi.org.in
Thank You for providing the Data, I have 5 different credit cards & only 1 UNI Card.. So far, everything is fine. I would like to state that in regular Credit Cards after usage (when your credit card has outstanding sum) some unknown changes are taking place as a result available credit limit reduces. When there is 100% Available Credit .. No such discrepancy is taking. I found Postpe & Slice rules as fraudulent.
Slice have other issues as well like rounding up final bill amount (didn’t see anyone doing this for all my cards), their app does not show transaction statement (all you can do is select some strange filters and sum up manually to see if final bill amount is correct) , multiple payment failures where credit card is mode of payment. I think they are eventually going to go down irrespective of proactive approach from customers to close down accounts.
A lot of points are not correct. Suggest that you learn some basic financial knowledge,and do decent research before writing anything.
Sure mam.
Can you please highlight a few mistakes/errors so that i can work upon them
Seems like a troll. Your website is doing a great job. Keep it up. Your detailed analysis are the best by any Indian credit card blog
Thanks for the appreciation Vineet.
Which company are you from btw? Slice, Postpe or UNI
Just a word of caution- I have almost all major bank credit cards and i am still trying to figure out how come such so called challenger credit card fintech can establish, flourish and sustain. In one of the card review, i remember it cautioned readers that as these are card for credit line, on CIBIL score board, there will be two consumer loans that will appear. For any persons with good credit score, applying to such credit cards will lower their score. Thought of sharing though I don’t want to test poison hence not considering applying for these.
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Hi!
Thanks for the amazing article that you’ve written. I was using slice to split my bills into three installments to have some extra cash for investing (as i do not earn a lot).
Since slice is curtailing the three month payment option i do not see any great use of the card and I’m thinking of shutting it down and switching to unipay 1/3rd card.
Do you think it’ll be a good idea to do this switch? I would like to hear your opinion on this.
Absolutely. Given that you have used slice for some time, you should have decent credit score now. You should look for real credit card now. Hdfc regalia can be a good start. Icici amazon pay and axis flipkart/ace are also good options
I dont recommend going to unipay card.
Thanks for the article.