Home Credit study finds Indian consumers shifting select payment and purchase journeys offline
Home Credit India’s 2026 study of lower-middle-income consumers finds offline preference rose for bill payments (59%), food purchases (73%) and bus/train tickets (72%). Retail payments are now evenly split between online and offline, while online loan preference edged up to 51%.
What happened
Home Credit India’s 2026 consumer study finds Indian lower-middle-class shoppers increasingly selective by channel: bill payments, food and travel bookings
Key facts
- Bill payments: offline preference 59% in 2026 vs 43% in 2025; online 39% vs 54%
- Retail payments: offline 49% in 2026 vs 46% in 2025; online 49% vs 51%
- Online loan preference: 51% in 2026 vs 50% in 2025
- Food offline preference: 73% in 2026 vs 59% in 2025
- Bus and train ticket offline preference: 72% in 2026 vs 58% in 2025; online 21% vs 29%
- Groceries and medicines offline preference: 82% each in 2026 vs 85% each in 2025
- Survey respondents aged 18-55; average monthly income ₹35,000
Why this matters
Prioritize partnerships or acquisitions that connect physical merchant networks with digital payments and credit, especially in transit, food and bill-pay ecosystems.
What to watch
- Sustained increases in bill-payment, transit-ticket and food-purchase volumes at physical counters versus app-based channels.
- Growth in assisted UPI, Bharat Connect/BBPS, cash-in/cash-out and retailer-led payment services.
- Changes in failed-payment rates, refund turnaround times, fraud complaints and customer-support contacts for digital transactions.
- Whether online loan disbursal and repayment continue rising even as purchase payments remain offline-oriented.
- Retailer announcements of store-based digital-service desks, agent partnerships, or omnichannel loyalty and credit programs.
- Mobile-data affordability, network reliability and vernacular UX adoption in tier-2, tier-3 and peri-urban markets.
- Add assisted-payment and customer-service capabilities at neighborhood retail, kirana, transit and bill-pay locations.
- Design channel-specific journeys rather than forcing app migration: enable online discovery and credit eligibility, with offline completion, support and returns.
- Prioritize trust features for lower-middle-income users, including transparent fees, instant receipts, human escalation and fraud-dispute resolution.
- Use offline transaction and service interactions, with consent, to improve underwriting, replenishment offers and localized assortment planning.
- Measure profitability by end-to-end customer journey across channels, not by digital-share targets alone; account for lower churn and higher conversion from assisted channels.
- Expand merchant incentives for accepting digital payments while preserving cash and assisted options, especially in food, transit and utility-payment corridors.