Curie Money: India's First UPI App That Grows Your Money

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Curie Money is a unique fintech app in India that integrates UPI payments with liquid mutual fund investments, aiming to offer higher returns on idle cash compared to traditional savings accounts.

2. The app invests users' money in SEBI-regulated liquid mutual funds through trusted AMC partners, allowing users to earn up to 7.3% returns, with instant redemption capabilities.

3. Curie Money earns revenue through commissions from AMCs as an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor, without charging hidden fees to customers.

4. The app has partnered with Yes Bank as a UPI-PSP partner, facilitating UPI transactions while maintaining bank-grade security and compliance standards.

5. While offering benefits like higher returns and no minimum balance requirements, Curie Money also presents challenges such as restricted liquidity, higher risk compared to savings accounts, and the absence of direct mutual fund plans.

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‘2016 was a bittersweet year for most Indians. The same year which witnessed the announcement of demonetization of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, also saw the introduction of UPI in India. And since then, UPI has been nothing less than a revolution in India's financial industry. Year after year, the popularity of UPI has continued to grow which is why many new features and apps are coming up to entice UPI users, be it in the form of cashbacks, discounts or rewards on UPI payments.

But there is a unique fintech app which is not giving you any reward points or cashback or discount, but in fact aiming to be India’s first and only UPI app that grows your money. The app we are talking about is Curie Money, a fintech company into which we will deep dive today to give you a fair and transparent idea about its corporate structure, business model, what it does, how it works, etc, and what we like and dislike about it.

So let’s begin!

Company Structure

Founded in 2022, Bengaluru-based Curie Money is a UPI app which invests your money in SEBI-regulated liquid mutual funds through trusted AMC partners. It is registered under the name Yield Technologies Private Limited, which has developed, designed and also operates the Curie Money website.

As per MCA data (as on 14th July 2025), Curie Money has two directors:

1. Tushar Choudhary

2. Ghosh Arindam

Both the young co-founders of Curie Money, Arindam and Tushar graduated from the prestigious IIT-Roorkee, completing their BTech in Computer Science and Electronics & Communications Engineering respectively, in the year 2017. Both of them had previously worked at the American banking giant Goldman Sachs before starting Curie Money 3 years ago in 2022.

How Curie Money Works

Given that we generally end up keeping a lot of our money in our savings bank accounts which barely earn us 2.5%-3% interest, Curie aims to give you higher returns by investing your money in liquid funds, where it can earn up to 7.3% returns*.

*\*Based on last 1 year data*

Here’s how the mechanism of merging UPI and liquid funds in the Curie app is done:

1. Once you sign up and your money is allocated to the liquid mutual fund of the AMC (usually allocated within T+1 working day 1–2 working days, depending on the fund's cut-off timings and the time you made the payment), you can use the Curie app to pay anyone by scanning any QR code or send money to any UPI ID—just like any other UPI app and select Curie Save as the payment method.

2. When you make the payment, Curie instantly redeems the required amount from your mutual fund and transfers it to your linked bank account in real time, within 2–5 seconds. As soon as your bank receives the amount, all that's left is to enter your UPI PIN—and the payment is complete. But, but, but, here’s the caveat.

3. Instead of the whole amount at once, you can instantly withdraw only up to 90% of your mutual fund value or ₹50,000, whichever is lower, to your linked bank account. But given that Curie currently has two partner AMCs (ICICI and Bajaj), the cumulative withdrawal limit becomes ₹1,00,000, or 90% of the mutual fund value, whichever is lower.

So what about the remaining amount? Well, Curie Money’s website/app doesn’t mention much details, so we reached out to their customer support for this clarification. Here’s how it works.

So basically, the mechanism works a bit different for the two partner AMCs of Curie Money.

For Bajaj Finserv AMC: The remaining amount can be withdrawn the next working day, again subject to the same 90%/₹50,000 limit. You’ll need to initiate the withdrawal again manually the next day.

For ICICI Prudential AMC: The remaining amount is automatically redeemed by the AMC on a T+1 working day basis., again subject to the same 90%/₹50,000 limit. The remaining amount (again subject to the withdrawal limit) gets credited to your bank account the next working day, and, unlike Bajaj’s case here, you do not need to place a manual second request.

(Note: Screenshot is of Curie Money app. When you sign up to the Curie app, it creates a folio account by sending an application to either of its AMC partners, who then sends an SMS and email to confirm the same to you).

Curie Money’s Business Model

We contacted Curie Money’s customer support to understand how the fintech earns revenue (which was reportedly Rs 35 lakh in FY24), especially because it claims that it does not charge any hidden fees or charges from the customers.

As per the response we got from Curie Money (screenshot of the email attached), the fintech earns a commission paid by the respective AMCs to them, because it is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor (ARN: 257706). This commission, also called trail commission, is a form of compensation AMCs give to MFDs for their service of distributing their mutual fund schemes to investors. The commissions are paid as a percentage of either the total investment amount or AUM.

Though they haven’t yet specified how much commission they earn, they had mentioned to us that the AMCs pay them standard commissions which are based on AMFI regulated structures. As per AMFI’s website, this is how the commission structure for mutual fund distributors works.

As far as the regulations pertaining to the amount of commission is concerned, the range is around 0.1%-2%, depending on the fund type, AMC policy, and distribution channel. This commission is paid from within the mutual fund scheme’s Total Expense Ratio (TER), which means that the cost is ultimately borne by investors as part of the fund’s annual expenses.

In case of liquid funds, the commission range is around 0.1%-1%, however, as per Curie Money, the commission rate is 0.05%-0.15% for the liquid funds with whom Curie has partnered.

Coming back to the customer’s point of view for fees and charges, given that Curie Money currently has two partner AMCs-ICICI Prudential AMC and Bajaj Finserv AMC, the following expense ratio and exit load is what you need to factor in when investing through them in these AMCs’ liquid funds through the fintech’s platform.

ICICI Prudential AMC’s liquid fund:

This AMC’s expense ratio for liquid funds currently stands at 0.29% p.a.(for regular plan).

Bajaj Finserv AMC’s liquid fund:

This AMC’s current expense ratio for liquid funds (as per July 2025) is 0.27% (for regular plan).

Why Has Curie Partnered With Banks If Everything Is Revolving Around Liquid Funds?

Till now, we have made you understand the key role of liquid funds in helping you grow your money through the Curie app, right? But now, you may wonder, if everything is revolving around liquid funds and the partnered AMCs, then why has Curie partnered with Yes Bank as well? Well, Yes Bank is a UPI-PSP (Payment Service Provider) partner to Curie Money, implying that it is the bank behind Curie’s UPI TPAP (Third Party Application Provider), with the UPI handle being @yescurie.

I hope everything is pretty clear to you all till now. Now we will bring to you a fair review of the platform by focusing on the aspects of Curie Money which we like and dislike.

What we like about Curie Money

• Higher returns for your idle cash: With the potential to offer up to 7.3% returns through liquid funds, you can earn much more than the traditional low-yield savings accounts that offer just about 2.5%-3% interest rates.

• No minimum balance requirement: Given that many banks still have minimum balance requirements for their savings accounts and levy charges on failure to maintain that, putting your idle money into Curie seems a better alternative, as it requires zero minimum balance.

• Safety through SEBI-regulated funds: As your money is invested in SEBI-regulated liquid mutual funds through Curie’s trusted AMC partners (currently ICICI Prudential and Bajaj Finserv), it is under SEBI’s regulation, along with the presence of Curie’s registration with AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India). Also, all the transactions being done are protected with bank-grade security, through partnerships with NPCI, RuPay, and PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance, with the latter being a set of security standards designed to protect cardholder data during transactions.

• Fastest instant redemption time for liquid funds: As per a conversation within our ALT Investor community, Curie’s co-founder Arindam Ghosh had claimed that Curie Money processes the fastest instant redemption currently in India, i.e. 1.5-3 seconds median. We at ALT wanted to confirm the same so we made a small investment through the Curie app and then redeemed a part of it, and the amount was credited instantly (within just about one second) into the user’s associated savings account.

What we don’t like about Curie Money

• Higher risk than traditional savings accounts: Although liquid mutual funds are generally considered low-risk funds when compared to hybrid or equity funds, they still carry higher risk than a bank’s savings accounts. This is because liquid funds invest in short-term market instruments like treasury bills, government securities and commercial papers having maturity of 91 days or less, which do carry some degree of risk. Whereas on the other hand, putting your money into RBI-regulated scheduled banks makes them less risky, with risk of bank failure relatively low, and deposits of up to Rs 5 lakhs (per bank per customer) secured under the DICGC insurance as well.

• No option to invest in direct instead of regular plans: Another key pain point for Curie Money users can be the absence of direct plans of liquid mutual funds. Currently, the platform only enables investments in regular plans of mutual funds, which thus allows it to earn distributor commissions. However, Curie’s platform is currently in its Beta version, so it may attempt to introduce the direct plans sooner or later. We shall have to wait and watch if that happens.

• Restricted liquidity through withdrawal limit: As mentioned earlier, you can instantly withdraw only up to 90% of your mutual fund value or ₹50,000, whichever is lower, to your linked bank account. While this does indeed restricts the liquidity for investors, it may, however, seem to be a little harsh to put this as a negative point particularly on a fintech platform like Curie Money, because it is actually SEBI guidelines which they ought to follow. Now we’ll have to wait and watch if SEBI revises this in the near future.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it's fair to say that Curie Money is indeed offering a unique approach to UPI payments by integrating them with liquid mutual fund investments. While the concept of sweep-in FDs has been quite common, such a concept of sweep-in mutual funds brings a fresh air of innovation.

Here it's noteworthy that although Curie Money provides benefits such as no minimum balance requirements and fast redemption times, it also faces challenges like restricted liquidity and higher risk compared to savings accounts. The absence of direct mutual fund plans is a key area that may need attention in near future. But overall, it's advisable for potential users to weigh the benefits against the risks and limitations before planning to go ahead with their decision to use the platform or not.

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Please note that this is an opinion blog and not an official research or investment advice. This blog neither encourages nor discourages you from investing in any particular asset class or platform.

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We have done more of such interesting company profiles of various platforms, which you can check out here: https://blog.thealtinvestor.in/series/company-profiles