Most people fight through a quiz to reach the case round. Sixteen of them will skip it entirely.
E.P.I.C, short for Enrich, Perform, Innovate and Challenge, is back for its eighth season, and TVS Credit has kept the one design quirk that separates people who read the fine print from people who do not. Before the elimination quiz opens, there is a treasure hunt built on clues dropped across the company's Instagram and YouTube. The top sixteen who crack it walk straight into the case study round. Everyone else takes the long road through a timed quiz. Here is how all four tracks work, who each one is built for, and how to run the season without wasting a single round.
Close to home
Last season's two time back to back National Finalist at E.P.I.C is an AceMBA Super100 student. This is not a competition that rewards luck. It rewards people who understood the format before they registered.
The shape of the season
One programme, four separate competitions
E.P.I.C is not a single case competition with domain themes bolted on. Each track is its own registration, its own eligibility rule, its own Round 1 paper and its own prize pool of up to ₹2,50,000. That is deliberate. TVS Credit Services is an RBI registered NBFC with more than 60,500 touchpoints across India, and it hires from analytics, finance, strategy and technology in very different ways. The track you pick is effectively the department you are auditioning for.
You cannot be part of more than one team, and every team member must be a full time student of the same college. So pick once, and pick where your evidence is strongest, not where the competition looks thinnest.
🏆
On the table per track
Cash and prizes worth up to ₹2,50,000, a trophy and certificates, plus PPI opportunities for the summer internship and management trainee programme for select top performers.
🎯
The four tracks
Analytics, Finance, Strategy and IT. Separate Unstop listings, separate eligibility, one E.P.I.C season.
🧭
The unusual round
A Treasure Hunt with 20 questions on TVS Credit and its products. Clues surface on Instagram stories and YouTube. Top 16 get a direct entry into the case study round.
👥
Team size
Analytics, Finance and IT run solo or as a pair. Strategy is a team of two to three and rewards mixed specialisations.
📈
Scale
The analytics track alone crossed 37,000 registrations this season. Round 1 is a filter built for that volume, which tells you exactly how it will be scored.
Pick your lane
The four tracks, side by side
Read all four before you register. Every year people default to the track their specialisation is named after, then discover in Round 1 that the paper was testing something adjacent. The Round 1 descriptions below come straight from the official listings.
Analytics Challenge
Who
B-School students, M.E/M.Tech, B.Tech/B.E from years 2 to 4, and students in mathematics, statistics, analytics or data science
Team
Individual or a team of 2
Round 1
20 analytics questions on quantitative aptitude and statistics plus 10 financial literacy questions, 35 minutes on the clock
Round 2
A one or two page solution to any one case, carrying the problem understanding, a four to five line approach, the expected value, the algorithm used and the final evaluation metric
B-School students with a finance specialisation, CA finalists who cleared Level 3 from November 2025 onwards, and CA aspirants through Intermediate Level 2
Team
Individual or a team of 2
Round 1
20 questions from the standard finance curriculum plus 10 financial literacy questions in 35 minutes, attempted by the team leader
Round 2
A two pager in Word, PPT or PDF covering the outline of the solution and the thought process behind it, on one case only
Each button opens the official Unstop listing for that track in a new tab.
Notice the pattern
Ten financial literacy questions appear in every single track
Analytics, Finance, Strategy and IT all carry the same 10 question financial literacy block in Round 1. For a non-finance candidate that is a third of the paper sitting outside your comfort zone, and it is the cheapest block to prepare. Interest rates, EMI mechanics, credit scores, NPAs, loan against property, two wheeler and used vehicle financing. Two focused evenings cover it.
Round by round
What actually happens once the season opens
0
Not scored
Demo quiz or demo assessment
A practice run on the platform with no elimination and no evaluation. Skipping it is a small unforced error. The demo is where you find out how the timer behaves, whether the question palette lets you revisit items and how the coding editor feels if you are on the IT track.
Do the demo on the same laptop, browser and network you plan to use for the real round.
1
The shortcut
Treasure Hunt, 20 questions on TVS Credit
Twenty questions about the company and its product portfolio, with hints released at intervals on TVS Credit's Instagram stories and YouTube. The top sixteen finishers jump directly into the case study round and never sit the elimination quiz. This is the highest leverage round in the entire season and most participants treat it as a warm up.
Turn on notifications for the TVS Credit Instagram and YouTube handles the day the hunt opens. Stories expire in 24 hours, and a missed story is a missed answer.
2
The filter
Round 1, the timed online quiz or assessment
Thirty questions in 35 minutes for Analytics, Finance and Strategy, which works out to just over a minute per question. The IT track runs longer at 95 minutes because two coding problems sit behind the objective block. The team leader attempts it, so decide early who that is and make sure they have the steadiest connection.
At roughly 70 seconds a question, accuracy per minute beats depth. Do one clean pass, flag anything that needs working out, come back with whatever time remains.
3
Where it gets real
Round 2, the case study challenge
A short submission on one chosen case. Analytics asks for the problem understanding, a four to five line approach, the expected benefit, the algorithm used and the final evaluation metric. Finance and Strategy want a two pager carrying the solution outline and the thinking behind it. IT wants a proof of concept with a framework, and prototype screens or wireframes where they earn their place.
One or two pages is a brutal constraint. Write the recommendation in the first three lines, then spend the remaining space defending it. Never open with a company overview the jury wrote themselves.
4
National finale
Grand Finale, live in front of the jury
Shortlisted teams present to a TVS Credit jury. This is where the PPI conversations happen, and where the difference between a good deck and a good defence shows up. Expect the questioning to focus on your assumptions and your numbers, not your slide design.
Build an appendix of the three numbers you are least sure about, with the working shown. Being asked one of those and having the sheet ready changes the room.
How to run the season
Seven moves that separate finalists from participants
1
Treat the Treasure Hunt as Round 1, not as trivia
Sixteen direct entries into the case round is the single largest arbitrage in this competition. Spend one evening on the TVS Credit website reading the product pages, then track the social handles like a job. Two wheeler loans, used car loans, tractor loans, consumer durable loans, business and personal loans, the Saathi app. The questions live in that material.
2
Learn NBFC economics before you learn the case
TVS Credit lends to customers most banks will not underwrite, in semi urban and rural India. That means net interest margin, cost of funds, collection efficiency, gross and net NPA, and loan to value ratios are the language of every case here. A recommendation that ignores credit cost is not a recommendation, it is a wish.
3
Pick the track where your evidence lives
Strategy is open to first and second year students across all specialisations and rewards teams built from different backgrounds. Analytics expects a real modelling instinct and an evaluation metric you can defend. Finance leans on curriculum depth and welcomes CA candidates. IT wants working code inside 75 minutes. Pick the one where you can already show work, not the one that sounds prestigious.
4
Choose the team leader on connection quality, not seniority
In Finance, Strategy and IT the leader attempts Round 1 for the whole team. That single account decides whether you advance. Pick the person with the most stable network and the calmest hands under a timer, and have them sit the demo round twice.
5
Write Round 2 to the structure they asked for
The analytics brief literally lists five components. Use them as your five headings. Juries scoring hundreds of two pagers reward the submission that lets them find each element in three seconds. Creativity belongs in the approach, not in the format.
6
Name a metric and put a number on the benefit
Whichever track you are in, close with what improves and by how much. Collection efficiency up by a stated number of basis points, approval turnaround down by a stated number of hours, model performance quoted with the metric you chose and why that metric fits the business problem. Vague upside reads like a hedge.
7
Play for the PPI, not the prize money
The cash is real, but the PPI track into the summer internship and management trainee programme is the compounding outcome. That changes how you behave in the finale: you are not just defending a deck, you are showing a hiring panel how you handle being told you are wrong.
The rewards, stated plainly
What each track pays out
🥇 Winner
₹1,00,000
Cash, plus a trophy and a certificate.
🥈 First Runner Up
₹75,000
Cash, plus a trophy and a certificate.
🥉 Second Runner Up
₹50,000
Cash, plus a trophy and a certificate.
⭐ Special Jury Award
₹25,000
Cash, plus a trophy and a certificate, for the entry the jury refuses to let go.
🤝 Select Top Performers
Pre-Placement Interviews
PPI opportunities for the summer internship and the management trainee programme, subject to criteria and availability. Participation certificates are issued to everyone who competes.
A separate opportunity worth taking
The Campus Ambassador programme, if you like building things on campus
Running alongside the four tracks is the E.P.I.C 8.0 Campus Ambassador programme, and it is a genuinely different animal. It is an individual role, not a case competition. You attend an official onboarding session, promote E.P.I.C across student communities, run a classroom pitch, partner with clubs and placement committees, create original content inspired by TVS Credit's campaigns, handle campus branding and share your E.P.I.C story on LinkedIn.
If your strengths sit in marketing, community building and campus leadership rather than in a timed quiz, this is the line on your CV that is easiest to defend in an interview, because every deliverable is visible and measurable. Ambassadors also build a direct line to the TVS Credit and Unstop teams, which is not nothing when the next season opens.
The official listing with the full stage list, deliverables and timelines for the ambassador track.
Click the link above to open the official listing in a new tab.
The honest read
E.P.I.C is a volume competition at the top of the funnel and a hiring conversation at the bottom. Tens of thousands register, a timed quiz removes most of them in 35 minutes, and a few dozen end up presenting to a jury that also happens to recruit.
Which means the cost of entry is low and the tail is long. Two evenings on financial literacy and NBFC basics, one evening on the product portfolio, and disciplined attention during the treasure hunt window put you ahead of most of that field before a single case is written.
Two wheeler, used car, tractor, consumer durable, business and personal loans, and the customer facing app. This is the primary source for treasure hunt answers and for the context your case needs.
Season announcements, finale coverage from previous editions and photographs of the winning teams. Useful for reading what the company chooses to celebrate.
Registration mechanics, team change rules, eligibility fine print and the exact wording of each round. The listing is the only authoritative source once dates start moving.
Click any link above to open it in a new tab and explore the resource.
AceMBA · AceCase Pro and Super100
A two pager that survives a jury, and a finale you can defend
E.P.I.C rewards speed in Round 1 and judgment in Round 2. Our mentors work on the second one, because that is where the PPI is decided.
✓ Expert-led teardowns of short-format case submissions, written to the exact brief
✓ Finale style Q and A drills where your assumptions get challenged out loud
AceMBA is an independent mentorship platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to TVS Credit Services Limited, the TVS Group, Unstop, or any entity mentioned in this article. All competition details, including tracks, eligibility, round formats, prize amounts, PPI opportunities and timelines, are compiled from public sources as of the date of publication and are subject to change by the organisers without notice. The official Unstop listings for each track are the authoritative source for rules and deadlines. Please verify all details there before registering. This article is for educational and informational purposes only.
Discussion
Share your thoughts, case or interview experiences, or strategy insights.
Comments are read by Mentors and all other students. Be respectful, on-topic, and constructive.
