Gurugram/Mumbai, August 18, 2026: FREED, India’s first liability management platform, has launched EMI Score, a free financial assessment tool designed to help borrowers understand their financial health and assess whether they can comfortably afford their existing and potential loan obligations.
The borrower-first tool evaluates three key aspects of an individual’s financial position — income stability and adequacy, monthly savings and existing loans and EMIs — and converts them into a simple score between 0 and 100.
The EMI Score is available free of charge at FREED’s website.
A borrower-focused approach to financial health
Credit has become an important part of household financial planning, helping millions of Indians finance homes, education, businesses and other major expenses. However, borrowers often lack a simple way to assess whether a new EMI can be comfortably accommodated within their existing income and savings.
According to the RBI Financial Stability Report released in June 2026, household debt has risen to 45.5% of GDP, while non-housing loans account for 58.4% of total household borrowing.
FREED believes that borrowers need a simple mechanism to identify financial stress before it develops into a repayment problem.
How EMI Score works
EMI Score combines three important indicators of a borrower’s financial position:
- Income: The stability and adequacy of monthly earnings.
- Savings: The financial cushion available to deal with unexpected expenses.
- Loan behaviour: The borrower’s ability to manage existing loans and EMIs.
Based on these factors, borrowers are placed into one of three financial health zones:
| Zone | Score | What it indicates | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green – Prevention | 65–100 | Income comfortably covers EMIs, savings remain stable and existing loans are being managed well. | Maintain current financial habits and reassess affordability before taking on additional debt. |
| Amber – Care | 35–64 | Financial pressure is beginning to build, with EMIs taking up a larger share of income and savings potentially declining. | Review existing obligations and consider simplifying or consolidating multiple EMIs where appropriate. |
| Red – Cure | 0–34 | Finances are under significant pressure and repayment may be becoming difficult. | Avoid taking on additional debt and explore structured solutions to manage existing obligations. |
FREED describes these three stages as prevention, care and cure, reflecting its broader approach to debt management. The company positions EMI Score as the diagnostic tool that can help borrowers identify where they stand before deciding on the appropriate course of action.
EMI Score complements the traditional credit score
FREED says EMI Score is designed to answer a different question from a conventional credit score.
While a credit score primarily reflects a borrower’s historical credit behaviour and helps lenders assess creditworthiness, EMI Score focuses on the borrower’s current financial capacity — whether today’s income and savings are sufficient to support today’s EMIs and whether taking on additional debt could increase financial stress.
“FREED exists to put the borrower first, and EMI Score is the clearest expression of that,” said Ritesh Srivastava, Founder and CEO, FREED. “Credit is a good thing. It is how people buy homes, educate their children and build businesses. The question is never whether to borrow. It is whether this loan, at this moment, is one you can comfortably carry.”
He added, “Today most people discover they are in stress only after a missed payment. We want to move that moment earlier, from cure to care to prevention. A loan should help you move forward. It should never become the thing that keeps you up at night.”
Towards more informed borrowing decisions
FREED believes that giving borrowers greater visibility into their current financial capacity can encourage more responsible borrowing and potentially reduce the risk of repayment stress.
The company also sees the potential for borrower-side financial health measures to complement traditional credit assessment. When borrowers understand how much debt they can sustainably carry, they can make more informed decisions while lenders can benefit from a more financially aware customer base.
With EMI Score, FREED aims to encourage a shift from reacting to financial distress after a missed payment to identifying and addressing financial stress before it becomes a crisis.
The company’s broader objective is to create an ecosystem in which Indians can borrow with greater confidence, understand their repayment capacity and make sustainable financial decisions.
