CRED has open sourced Propeller, its real-time communication platform designed to streamline communication between mobile applications and backend services. This move allows organisations and developers to adopt and build upon the platform.
The Propeller platform has redefined how CRED members interact with its app, delivering up to 95% faster transaction status updates for UPI payments and near-instant notifications for rewards and cashback. Additionally, it has reduced backend server loads, improving speed and reliability.
Propeller ensures members receive instant confirmation for bill payments, UPI transfers, and reward redemptions. CRED claims that what previously took several seconds now happens almost instantaneously, eliminating transaction anxiety.
Enhanced Rewards and Payment Experience CRED members benefit from immediate communications, including:
- Instant reward notifications post-transaction
- Real-time cashback credits
- Immediate CRED coin balance updates
- Instant prize confirmations in CRED Win
- Live updates during special events and sales
The platform has also minimised transaction friction, significantly reducing processing delays. Members can now complete bill payments faster, receive immediate transaction confirmations, and get clear notifications for failed transactions.
Propeller leverages the gRPC protocol to overcome a major challenge in digital payments: the delay between transaction initiation and confirmation. Unlike traditional systems that rely on repeated backend server queries, Propeller facilitates instant push communications from the backend to the app.
“We built Propeller initially to optimise UPI payment flows, where every millisecond matters,” said Swamy Seetharaman at CRED.
“The traditional polling approach would have meant we were either overwhelming our servers with requests or making users wait unnecessarily. Our new architecture, built on gRPC bi-directional streaming, has enabled transaction status updates to happen almost instantaneously, which is crucial for members who have come to expect frictionless experiences from CRED.”
