Fintech major PhonePe, India's largest UPI app, is launching its first international operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to reports from Business Standard, co-founder and CEO Sameer Nigam announced this development at the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai on Wednesday. The Bengaluru-based company has secured two licences from the Central Bank of the UAE that will enable local operations in the West Asian country. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, the UAE licence will enable PhonePe to offer full-scale payment services locally in an international market, rather than simply facilitating UPI transactions for Indian users travelling abroad. Nigam described this as a significant milestone, stating that "The last 10 years were about us being only within the country borders. Hopefully, 10 years later, we can talk about a truly global business."
PhonePe and Visa announced the launch of three new payment solutions - Tap to Pay, Cross Border Scan to Pay and Smart Accept at the Global Fintech Festival (GFF) 2026. As per The Economic Times, this partnership makes PhonePe the first app in India to offer Cross Border Scan to Pay for international transactions. The acquired licences will allow PhonePe to offer consumer payment instruments such as wallets and gift cards, as well as e-payment acceptance infrastructure to merchants. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the company announced three new offerings at the Global Fintech Fest: Tap to Pay, Cross Border Scan to Pay and Smart Accept. PhonePe founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer Rahul Chari explained that the platform will enable micro-merchants to accept card payments through its Smart Accept solution, with consumers who have saved their Visa cards on the PhonePe app able to make credit card payments at small merchants using the PhonePe for Business app with Visa Accept.
The launch of PhonePe's services in the UAE is expected to open use cases such as remittances between the two countries. Nigam indicated that UAE citizens will be able to make payments on a UAE-based POS (point-of-sale) device in the near future. The service will also facilitate transactions for UAE-registered users within the country and enable money transfers to and from India. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, Card payments facilitated through Scan Accept will be fully integrated into PhonePe's existing QR dashboard for daily reconciliation and dispute resolution, though there is no clarity on exactly when this service will be rolled out to merchants. PhonePe founder Rahul Chari dismissed security concerns around card tokenization, stating that "there is no fraud that gets enabled through card tokenization on mobile devices" and emphasizing that tokenization is a broader concept beyond just card payments.
PhonePe has made significant progress in addressing the needs of 250 million Indians who still use feature phones through innovative USSD-based solutions. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, PhonePe has become the first UPI app to launch feature-phone payments using the USSD protocol, calling it "the first of this kind of secure payment solution in the world." The service allows users to make peer-to-peer transfers to mobile numbers or bank accounts, share QR codes, and receive payments. Nigam noted that around 40% of feature phones in India have cameras, allowing some users to scan QR codes as well. The company is also developing a voice-enabled, AI-powered helpline in English and 12 Indian languages to help feature-phone users understand digital payments.
This marks PhonePe's first international market entry as part of the broader expansion of Indian fintech companies globally. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the announcement comes days after one of its key rivals, Paytm, said it had secured a payment institution licence from the Luxembourg financial regulator, allowing payment services across all European countries. Indian fintech firms are particularly expanding in Southeast Asia and West Asia markets. Paytm is also expanding to countries such as Indonesia and Luxembourg, along with an international arm Paytm Arab Payments (PAPL) in partnership with Abbar Global Opportunities Holdings (AGOHL). UPI is already accepted in other countries including France, Qatar, Bhutan, Cambodia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Mauritius, with deployments underway in other regions.
The announcement follows PhonePe's launch of a UPI service for an estimated 230 million feature phone users in India. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, PhonePe is preparing for a public listing and filed its updated draft red herring prospectus (UDRHP) with markets regulator SEBI for an initial public offering in January. The IPO is purely an offer for sale by existing investors, including Walmart, Tiger Global, Microsoft and General Atlantic. However, the company temporarily paused its IPO plans in March, citing geopolitical tensions and market volatility.
