Building a Private Credit Thesis on India's Credit Penetration Gap

Varun has been building and refining a thesis on private credit and credit penetration in India independently, outside of his formal work at Veefin. The starting point was a data observation that he found both striking and underappreciated.

Individual credit penetration in India sits at roughly 5–6%. India's credit-to-GDP ratio is approximately 85%, compared to around 180% in the United States and 150% in China. The gap is structural, not cyclical, and it points to a large addressable opportunity as financial literacy improves and a younger, more educated population becomes more comfortable using credit.

Varun's view is that the cultural dimension is as important as the macroeconomic one. Credit has historically been treated as taboo in large parts of Indian society, and the data reflects that. As that norm shifts, the companies building infrastructure for private credit have a significant runway ahead of them.

He tracks companies operating in this space through his work at Veefin, where he meets fintech firms through partnerships and product conversations, and through his own personal investing in public markets across sectors. The thesis is ongoing and continues to evolve as new data comes in.