Lydia introduces credit lines

French startup Lydia announced a partnership with Banque Casino today for small credit lines. Starting tomorrow, Lydia users in France will be able to borrow as much as €1,000 in just a few seconds.

While Lydia started as a peer-to-peer money transferring app, fintech startups always end up offering credit at some point. It’s hard to make money without offering some form of credit.

Banque Casino is a subsidiary of Casino and Crédit Mutuel. As the name suggests, it’s a bank that can issue credit lines. Lydia has developed a seamless integration with Banque Casino so you can instantly get money from Banque Casino.

The credit feature lets you borrow between €100 and €1,000 and reimburse that credit line over three months. If you’re eligible, you’ll instantly see how much you’ll end up paying after three months.

But the most interesting feature is that you can either get your money instantly on your Lydia account for a fee, or you can wait a couple of weeks to wave this fee.

Combining instant credit with instant spending is key to this feature. Lydia lets you instantly spend money on your Lydia account on e-commerce websites that support Lydia, using Lydia’s debit card, or using a virtual card in Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay. And if Lydia wants to replace cash, it needs to be as quick as giving a money bill to someone.

Lydia currently has 1.5 million users; 3,500 people open a Lydia account every day. The company recently released two insurance products for your mobile devices, as well.

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