EMI & education financing at checkout — WITH hardship/pause provisions

Why / Context

PRD §8.6: EMI at checkout is "near-mandatory at the price points UpGrad, Edureka, and Crio.do operate at" — Capstone/Flagship and Career-tier annual prices sit exactly in that band. HARD REQUIREMENT from the teardown SKIP list: Crio's EMI partnerships produced consumer-complaint evidence of real harm (job loss with no payment pause); any partner we integrate must include explicit hardship/deferment provisions.

Schema already in place — NO migration required

• Payment.method carries emi; provider EMI plans ride through Razorpay (Payment.raw holds tenure/issuer)
• Subscription.pausedAt/resumesAt — hardship pause state for subscription-side relief
• Order.metadata / OrderItem.metadata for financing-application refs (partner application id)
• PlatformConfig for eligibility thresholds (min order value per method)

Implementation plan

1. Phase 1 — Razorpay native EMI: enable card EMI / cardless EMI methods on Razorpay checkout for orders above threshold; display tenure/interest disclosure pre-payment; reconcile via existing webhook path (Payment.method='emi').
2. Phase 2 — education-financing partner (Propelld/Financepeer-class): evaluation matrix MUST score hardship/deferment policy first (deal-breaker), then approval rates, payout timing, learner NPS.
3. Partner flow: checkout "Pay with financing" → partner application handoff (redirect/embed) → application webhook → on disbursal, record Payment(provider: MANUAL, method: 'financing', raw: partnerPayload) and fulfill the order; store application ref in Order.metadata.
4. Hardship UX: documented pause/deferment request path in learner billing settings that files a partner ticket AND pauses platform-side consequences (access retained per policy; Subscription.pausedAt where applicable).
5. Refund interplay: financed orders refund to the financier — extend refund service routing by Payment.method; document learner-facing policy copy.
6. Eligibility service: which items/totals surface financing (config-driven), soft credit-check disclosure copy.
7. Legal/copy review of all disclosure screens (loops in issue #24 compliance pack).
8. Rollout behind FeatureFlag('emi-financing'), Capstone+ price points first.

Acceptance criteria

• Razorpay EMI tenure selection completes and fulfills like a normal capture
• Partner-financed order fulfills on disbursal webhook; application state visible in admin order view
• Hardship request path live and documented; pause honored platform-side
• Refund of a financed order routes to the financier and is recorded correctly
• No financing surfaces below the configured price threshold

Dependencies / sequencing

• MVP M7 required. Partner contract is the long pole — start diligence immediately; teardown mandates hardship terms before launch, not after

Start by reviewing the existing Payment, Subscription, Order metadata, and PlatformConfig schema, then trace the Razorpay webhook and refund-service paths. Read the hardship requirements and issue #24 compliance dependency before assessing the checkout, financing webhook, learner settings, admin order view, and feature-flag entry points. Done requires all listed acceptance criteria, including threshold gating, hardship pauses, disbursal fulfillment, and financier refunds.