Employer-paid debt counselling that turns stacked loans into one workable plan
TL;DR Debtease is a confidential debt-counselling desk that employers buy as a staff benefit. An employee drowning in loans gets a full review, a budget that actually works and a repayment plan, and Debtease takes that plan to each lender. The employer pays a per-employee fee and the employee pays nothing.
Loans are the single biggest thing Indians complain to their banks about. Loans and advances made up 29.25% of complaints at the RBI Ombudsman's offices in 2024-25, and credit card complaints went up 20.04% in a year[1].
The debt-relief firms tell you how big the mess is. The largest says it has counselled more than 20 lakh people and settled over 32,645 loans, and it even sells a product against recovery harassment[2]. Settling isn't free though. Under RBI's 2023 framework, a lender that takes less to close a loan cannot give that person fresh credit for a minimum of 12 months[3]. If you're a salaried person juggling a personal loan, two cards and an app loan then a plan you can keep usually beats a settlement.
What it does, in regulatory terms: debt counselling and negotiation support only. Debtease does not lend, collect EMIs, hold borrower money or recover dues for lenders. If it adds consolidation loans later then it becomes an agent of a regulated lender, and RBI's digital lending rules come into play[4].
Here's how it works. An employee books a confidential session and a counsellor lists every loan, card and app debt, builds a budget from the payslip and drafts a plan - which loans to restructure, which penal charges to contest and what monthly amount is realistic. Debtease then writes to each lender with the plan and income proof. Since January 2024, penal charges cannot be capitalised or folded into the interest rate[5], which gives counsellors solid ground to dispute some balances. The employer only ever sees usage numbers, never names.
The original idea pitched collective bargaining by borrowers, and that doesn't fly. Indian lenders settle each account under their own board-approved policy, signed off by someone senior to the officer who sanctioned it[3], so a borrower group has nothing to push with. An employer contract brings volume to the desk without asking anyone to default together.
The employee uses it and the employer pays. My working assumption is ₹30–80 per employee per month, or a fixed annual fee for a set number of cases. Your buyers are HR heads at firms with big salaried workforces, think factories, retail chains and BPOs. The consumer options charge the borrower instead - one debt-relief platform offers enrolment for ₹599[6], and another does not publish its fees[2].
Two rule changes made lenders more predictable. The penal-charges rules from January 2024[5] and the 2023 settlement framework[3] mean a structured plan is easier to negotiate than it used to be. Complaints keep climbing too, up 13.55% overall in 2024-25[1], and the consumer debt-relief firms have already proved that borrowers will put their hand up for help.
There's no public figure for employer-funded debt counselling in India. The closest you'll get is what consumer players say about themselves. One platform reports more than 75,000 customers served[2] and another more than 50,000 clients across 187 cities[6]. Those numbers are self-reported and come from settlement-led services, so treat them as a neighbour of this market and not the market itself.
Indian debt-relief platforms sell debt relief straight to borrowers, with settlement, consolidation and debt management plans[2][6]. A UK debt charity runs free debt management plans where one monthly payment gets shared among creditors[7], which is the closest thing to a counselling-first model. Earned-wage-access firms do sell to employers, but they add credit rather than cut it. Nobody in India sells debt counselling to employers as a benefit yet.
| Difficulty | Moderate (41/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹40–75 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
The software is basic, so that's not where you'll sweat. The hard bits are hiring counsellors who can calm frightened people and still stand up to stubborn collections teams, building working contacts at 20–30 lenders, and convincing HR heads that staff debt is their problem at all. Confidentiality has to be airtight, or no employee will ever walk in.
No lending licence while you only counsel and negotiate. The line moves the moment money or loans are involved.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI decide whether someone should settle, default or take a new loan. Those are money decisions with credit consequences, and a trained counsellor makes them with the employee.
Want to work out the AI layer for Debtease? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I'd back a founder from a bank's collections or restructuring team on this one, because they understand both sides of the table. If you're planning to earn settlement fees on top then it isn't for you. Before anything else, prove that one employer of 2,000 or more staff will pay, and that half of your submitted plans get a lender's written yes.
Plan for roughly ₹40–75 L over 4–6 months, mostly on trained counsellors, lender relationships and selling to HR teams.
Not a lending licence, as long as you don't lend, collect EMIs or hold borrower money. Arranging consolidation loans would bring in RBI's digital lending rules.
Yes, and the UK already has counselling-first debt management plans. Many countries regulate debt advice separately, so check your local rules first.
The free Debtease validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the lending-rule and data-protection checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for HR heads and employees, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Debtease or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting lenders to accept plans from a third party and convincing HR to fund it, and that's the kind of problem I like working on with founders. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.