Scapia (Federal Bank)
KeepA 2% travel wallet with a 0% forex card stapled on — never confuse the coins for money.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: None — lifetime free with no joining bonus; the 0% forex is the pitch
How these numbers are computed →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
The take
Scapia is the free version of the zero-forex trade: no joining fee, no annual fee, 0% markup in 150+ countries, and unlimited domestic lounge access if you push ₹20,000 through it the previous month — a bar Feb-2026 doubled from ₹10k. The coins are where you read the fine print twice: 10% back sounds rich until you do the maths (5 coins = ₹1, so it's 2%, 4% on app bookings) and realise they only spend on flights, hotels, trains and buses inside Scapia's own app — no cashback, no transfers, a 36-month fuse, and zero coins on international spends or on the insurance/utility categories the Feb-2026 nerf killed. As a free forex-and-lounge tool it's genuinely excellent; as a rewards program it's a gift card to one travel agency.
What's good
- Lifetime free + 0% forex markup — the cheapest border-crossing card in India
- Unlimited domestic lounge visits at ₹20k prior-month spend
- 10% coins everywhere, 20% on app bookings — 2% / 4% in real money
- Coins never devalue mid-air: 5 coins = ₹1 against any app flight, hotel, train or bus
Watch out
- Coins spend ONLY on Scapia-app travel — no cashback, no transfers, app-dependency risk
- Feb-2026 nerf: lounge bar doubled to ₹20k/month; insurance & utility earn killed
- Zero coins on international spends — abroad it's purely a 0%-forex card
- 36-month coin expiry; 1% fee on rent/wallet loads and fuel/utility past ₹50k a month
What earns, what doesn't
Scapia's terms list the exclusions by category (fuel, rent, utility, insurance, crypto, forex, gift cards, wallet loads, education, government, business services, EMI earn nothing); the Feb-27-2026 devaluation notice named the utility MCCs (4900/4812/4814/4816/4899) and insurance (6300). Coins are travel-app-only money — see currencies.yaml.
- Fuel · excluded Zero coins; 1% surcharge waiver ≤₹5,000 txns (waiver cap ₹500/month, official KFS); 1% fee past ₹50k/month fuel spend
- Rent & property management · excluded Zero coins AND a 1% + GST convenience fee per rent txn (max ₹3,000) — official KFS
- Wallet loads · excluded Zero coins + 1% + GST fee per wallet-load txn (official KFS)
- Utilities (electricity/water/gas) · excluded MCC 4900/4812/4814/4816/4899 zeroed w.e.f. 27-Feb-2026 (official devaluation notice); 1% fee past ₹50k/month
Lounge access
Gate: ₹20k spend in the previous month (bar doubled from ₹10k on 27-Feb-2026); access activates 3–5 working days post-billing
Opens 72 of 644 tracked lounge doors across 40 airports — see the full map →
Can you get it?
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
Federal Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
per the official Federal Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Lifetime free — joining, annual and add-on all Nil. Late-fee ceiling ₹1,000 is the lowest hard cap alongside Amex Plat Travel. Fuel surcharge 1% waived ≤₹5,000 (waiver cap ₹500/month); 1% + GST convenience fee (max ₹3,000/txn) on fuel/utility spends past ₹50k a month AND on every rent/wallet-load txn. Card replacement ₹200 + GST. Federal publishes no income/age criteria — app-led onboarding. KFS v8, 27-01-2026.
per the official Federal Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 27 Feb 2026Scapia doubles the lounge bar and kills its easiest earnUnlimited domestic lounges at ₹10k prior-month spend; insurance and utility payments earned coins and counted → Lounge gate doubled to ₹20k/month; insurance, utility, rent and fuel earn nothing and don't count toward the gate
Scapia's first real devaluation lands on both sides of the same trade: the unlimited-lounge threshold doubles to ₹20,000 a month just as the insurance and utility spends that most easily cleared it stop earning or counting at all. The card is still lifetime-free with 0% forex — but the era of paying your electricity bill for a lounge pass is over.
- 20 Jun 2023Scapia launches: 0% forex and unlimited lounges, for freeZero-forex travel cards were a paid, premium privilege → Lifetime-free Federal Bank co-brand: 0% forex, unlimited domestic lounges, 10–20% coins on spends
A fintech co-brand on Federal Bank rails resets the entry price of the zero-forex trade to nothing: no joining fee, no annual fee, 0% markup abroad and unlimited domestic lounge access. The 10% 'rewards' headline is really 2% in coins that only spend inside Scapia's own travel app — but as a free forex-and-lounge tool, nothing at launch came close, and half the fintech card industry spent the next two years copying it.
- 3 Sept 2021Federal Bank deals its first own cards — Celesta on topFederal customers had no in-house credit card → Celesta, Imperio and Signet launch on Visa with 3-click digital issuance; Celesta brings 2 international + 8 domestic lounge visits
Federal Bank's September-2021 entry put three Visa cards in front of its existing customers, with Celesta as the HNI flagship — instant issuance inside FedMobile, dynamic interest from 0.49% a month, and lounge access rare at the price. The rewards were an afterthought then and remain one now (1 point per ₹100 at ₹0.25), but the free international lounge visits and 2% forex gave Celesta a reason to exist that the points never did.
Go deeper
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these documents — the issuer's own paperwork first. Spot something stale? The PDF wins, and we re-verify.
- official Product page — 0 fees, 0% forex, 10%/5% coin rates, 5 coins = ₹1, ₹20k lounge gate checked 12 Jul 2026
- official Key Fact Sheet PDF — APR, late-fee slabs, rent/wallet/fuel/utility fees checked 12 Jul 2026
- official Scapia site — redemption scope (flights/hotels/trains/buses), UPI 5% checked 12 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider — Feb-2026 nerf (₹20k gate, insurance/utility/telecom earn killed 27-Feb-2026, 36-month expiry) checked 12 Jul 2026
- official Scapia summer release — dual Visa + RuPay cards on one account (Jun-2025) checked 12 Jul 2026
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