New Delhi, Sept. 4 -- For many young Indians, financial planning begins with a simple question: Can I afford the EMI?

Whether it's a smartphone, a motorcycle or a home, the answer is increasingly shaped by the size of the monthly instalment rather than the full financial commitment behind it. Easy access to digital lending has done something genuinely good here - it has let a much wider set of young Indians into formal credit, often for the first time in their lives.

That shift shows up clearly in the data. TransUnion CIBIL's most recent Credit Market Indicator report found that Gen Z accounted for 41% of all first-time borrowers in India.

Its 2026 Beyond the Swipe study goes further: half of India's new-to-credit-card users are now Ge...