By PhonePe is stepping outside India for the first time. The Walmart-backed fintech has secured its first international payments licences from the Central Bank of the UAE. It plans to launch local operations there soon. Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam announced the move at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026 in Mumbai.
“PhonePe is going global. We just received our first international licences from the Central Bank of the UAE. So, PhonePe will be launching its operations locally in the UAE as our first foreign market,” Nigam said on stage.
What the licences actually allow
PhonePe has secured two separate licences from the UAE’s central bank. Together, they let the company offer consumer payment instruments, such as wallets and gift cards, and build e-payment acceptance infrastructure for merchants.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, Nigam explained why the UAE made sense as a starting point. UPI already connects with Aani, the UAE’s domestic instant payments rail. This gives PhonePe a technical foothold to build on rather than starting from scratch.
“The licences that we have will allow PhonePe to do consumer payments, wallets, gift cards and merchant acquiring,” Nigam told reporters.
Why this is different from PhonePe’s existing UAE presence
PhonePe is not new to the UAE. Indian users travelling there can already make UPI payments at select merchant terminals. This is part of a broader push that also covers the US, UK, Singapore, Australia and Saudi Arabia. That earlier arrangement only served Indian travellers spending abroad.
The new licences change the scope entirely. PhonePe can now operate as a local payments company inside the UAE. It will serve UAE residents and merchants directly, rather than acting as a bridge for outbound Indian spending.
One clear use case stands out: remittances. The UAE hosts one of the largest Indian expatriate communities in the world. The UAE-India corridor also ranks among India’s largest sources of inward remittances, with annual flows estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. A locally licensed PhonePe could plug directly into that flow.
PhonePe isn’t the only one racing abroad
The UAE announcement follows a similar move by rival Paytm just weeks earlier. Paytm secured a payment institution licence from Luxembourg’s financial regulator in July, which lets it offer payment services across the entire European Union. Paytm has also been building out Paytm Arab Payments, an international arm formed with Abbar Global Opportunities Holdings, alongside expansion plans in Indonesia.
The pattern is clear. India’s biggest UPI players have largely exhausted the easy growth left in the domestic market and are now hunting for revenue outside it.
A new Visa partnership rounds out the global push
Alongside the UAE news, PhonePe used GFF 2026 to announce a partnership with Visa aimed at powering cardless payments worldwide. The company unveiled three new products:
- Tap to Pay: Android users can tokenise their Visa cards and make contactless payments at point-of-sale machines, even with poor connectivity. It rolls out in phases starting September 9, 2026.
- Cross Border Scan to Pay: PhonePe users can scan Visa-supported QR codes across 14 international markets. These include Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, China and South Korea.
- Smart Accept: Small merchants can accept card payments directly on their smartphones, skipping the need for a separate POS machine.
“By unifying online tokenisation, we are removing friction across the entire payments value chain. The partnership will bring a new standard for borderless and cardless commerce for Indian consumers and micro-merchants alike,” said Rahul Chari, PhonePe’s co-founder and CPTO.
Card transactions processed through these new tools will feed into PhonePe’s existing QR dashboard, giving merchants a single place to reconcile payments and handle disputes. The company hasn’t specified a rollout timeline for the merchant-facing Smart Accept tool.
The bigger picture: an IPO-bound PhonePe going global
These announcements land at a sensitive moment for PhonePe. The company filed its updated draft red herring prospectus (UDRHP) with SEBI in January 2026. This could become one of India’s largest fintech listings. The IPO is structured entirely as an offer for sale. Existing investors including Walmart, Tiger Global, Microsoft and General Atlantic, will sell their shares, and PhonePe itself won’t raise fresh capital.
That listing hit a snag in March 2026. PhonePe paused its IPO plans, citing geopolitical tensions tied to the Israel-Iran conflict and broader market volatility. The company hasn’t announced a revised timeline.
Domestically, PhonePe also continues to dominate the UPI market alongside Google Pay, together processing the overwhelming majority of transactions on the network. A proposed 30% market-share cap for individual UPI apps remains deferred until December 31, 2026. That gives PhonePe continued breathing room at home even as it eyes growth abroad.
The UAE launch also comes days after PhonePe extended UPI-based payments to feature phone users in India. That segment is estimated at over 200 million people who lack smartphone access. Between building out inclusion at home and licences abroad, PhonePe appears to be pursuing growth on two fronts at once. That comes ahead of a public listing that markets are still waiting on.
