PhonePe UAE payments licence: what it enables
PhonePe’s UAE payments licence takes its international strategy beyond helping Indian users make UPI payments abroad. The Central Bank of the UAE has granted PhonePe its first overseas licence, and the fintech plans to launch local operations in the country.
What the PhonePe UAE payments licence changes
PhonePe currently allows users to make UPI payments across select international markets, including the US, the UK, Singapore, Australia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, among others. Those services support Indian users travelling overseas.
The UAE licence is intended to let PhonePe offer full-scale payment services locally in an international market. That is a different model from simply facilitating UPI transactions for users from India.
PhonePe has not specified when its UAE operations will launch.
“PhonePe is going global. We just received our first international licenses from the Central Bank of the UAE. So, PhonePe will be launching its operations locally in the UAE as our first foreign market,” founder and CEO Sameer Nigam said at the Global Fintech Fest.
PhonePe is also expanding cardless payments
Alongside the UAE announcement, PhonePe and Visa introduced three cardless payment offerings: Tap to Pay, Cross Border Scan to Pay and Smart Accept.
- Tap to Pay: Android users can tokenise their Visa cards and make contactless payments at point-of-sale machines, including in low-connectivity environments. The service is scheduled to roll out in phases, starting September 9, 2026.
- Cross Border Scan to Pay: PhonePe users will be able to scan Visa-supported QR codes across 14 key international markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, China and South Korea. The feature will be rolled out to users soon.
- Smart Accept: Small merchants will be able to accept card payments directly on their smartphones without a separate card point-of-sale machine. Customers can pay by tapping physical cards or tokenised mobile wallets against the merchant’s device.
The services, together with online card tokenisation, are designed to cover consumer and merchant payments.
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“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, founder and CPTO of PhonePe.
Card payments facilitated through Scan Accept will be integrated into PhonePe’s existing QR dashboard for daily reconciliation and dispute resolution. The source does not specify when the service will be rolled out to merchants.
Why the UAE move matters for PhonePe
The licence gives PhonePe a route to build a local payments business outside India, rather than limiting its international presence to cross-border UPI access. The UAE will be its first foreign market, according to Nigam.
The announcement follows Paytm’s disclosure that it had secured a payment institution licence from Luxembourg’s financial regulator. That licence allows Paytm to offer payment services across European countries.
PhonePe is also preparing for a public listing. The company filed an updated draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for an initial public offering in January. The offering is purely a sale of shares by existing investors, including Walmart, Tiger Global, Microsoft and General Atlantic.
PhonePe temporarily paused its IPO plans in March, citing geopolitical tensions and market volatility. Its UAE licence now gives the company an international operating plan to execute alongside its public-market preparations.
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