Big fat Indian weddings go digital as QR and credit take centre stage

As India enters its peak wedding season, one of India's largest consumption cycles is undergoing a quiet financial makeover. Jewellers, designers, banquet halls, caterers and gift stores are increasingly seeing customers pay not through cash bundles or cheques, but via UPI scans, QR codes and EMI-linked digital credit.

 

Data from BharatPe’s merchant network shows a clear surge in digital payments across key wedding categories such as jewellery, bridal wear, venues, décor, catering and gifting. More importantly, a rising share of these transactions is now happening on credit converted into EMIs, signalling a shift in how Indian households are funding big-ticket wedding expenses.

 

Weddings move from savings-led to credit-assisted spending

 

Traditionally, wedding expenditure in India has been front-loaded through savings, gold liquidation and family pooling of funds. The growing adoption of UPI-linked credit is now introducing a structured, repayment-driven model into wedding finance.

 

Much of this change is being driven by the launch of EMI-based, UPI-linked credit cards, including the Unity Bank BharatPe Credit Card, introduced in August 2025. The card allows users to make QR-code payments on credit and automatically convert eligible transactions into 3–12 month EMIs.

 

Zero Fees, Auto-EMI Conversion, and Rewards: The card comes with no joining or renewal fees, no hidden charges or foreclosure penalties, and offers flexible EMI conversion (up to 12 months) for large spends, making it ideal for expensive wedding-season purchases.

 

Instant UPI + Credit Combo: Cardholders can link the credit-card to any UPI app (via BharatPe or others), enabling payments at millions of merchants, from jewellery stores to clothing boutiques to caterers, without needing a POS machine.

 

Rewards & Lifestyle Perks: Every EMI-converted transaction earns flat 2 % cashback (as “Zillion Coins”) that can be redeemed for vouchers, products or even to pay off card bills via the BharatPe app. Additional benefits include complimentary lounge access and annual health check-ups.

 

For affluent and upper middle-class families alike, this enables:

• Smoother cash flow management, instead of large one-time outgoes
• Portfolio protection, by avoiding premature withdrawal from long-term investments
• Better expense tracking through digital records

 

A growing share of these high-value purchases are now happening via UPI QR-payments or credit-card–enabled EMIs, driven by convenience, security and flexibility.

The wedding season is increasingly behaving like a structured consumption cycle rather than a one-off cash drain. Large jewellery purchases, venue advances and décor contracts are now being spread across multiple months through EMIs.  

For households, this can have mixed implications:

 

Positive: Reduced stress on emergency funds and investment portfolios

 

Risk: Over-leveraging if multiple wedding expenses are pushed into parallel EMIs

 

A liquidity upgrade for wedding merchants and MSMEs

 

The digital shift also has direct implications for small vendors and wedding-season MSMEs, many of whom traditionally struggled with delayed payments and heavy cash handling.

 

BharatPe’s QR network allows:

 

• Instant digital settlements without POS machine investments
• Zero MDR on UPI payments
• Access to a growing pool of credit-enabled customers

 

For vendors holding expensive bridal inventory or handling high-volume catering contracts, faster digital collections improve working capital cycles during peak demand months.

 

Rewards, credit and consumption psychology

 

The integration of cashback and lifestyle rewards into EMI-linked wedding spending is also changing buyer behaviour. Reward points that can be redeemed against shopping or card bills create a “spend now, earn later” consumption loop, which fintech firms see as a long-term customer acquisition lever.

 

India’s wedding economy, estimated at $100 billion-plus annually, is no longer just a cultural spectacle — it is fast becoming a digitally financed consumption cycle. With UPI + credit + EMIs converging at the checkout counter, weddings are now:

 

More liquidity efficient

 

• More trackable
• More integrated with retail credit ecosystems