What trends are driving the next wave of innovation in cross-border payments, and how is Cashfree positioning itself to capitalise on them?
Cross-border e-commerce in India has moved firmly into the mainstream. Nearly half of Indian online shoppers have purchased from international sites in the past six months, spanning not just luxury, but categories like beauty, travel, global fashion, and wellness. This reflects the rise of young, globally aware consumers who see international products as part of their aspirations and lifestyle.
At the same time, Indian brands are reaching global markets more than ever, whether it’s fashion in the US, Ayurveda in Europe, or handicrafts in the Middle East. The flow is now two-way: Indians shopping globally, and Indian businesses selling globally. Looking ahead, the future of digital commerce is borderless.
At Cashfree Payments, we’re building the rails to make this future real, where a shopper in Jaipur can buy from Seoul or a seller in Surat can reach New York as effortlessly as a domestic transaction, powered by payments that are seamless, trusted, and compliant by design.
How do you see the interoperability between UPI, FinTechs, banks and global payment networks shaping the future of domestic and international transactions?
India’s digital payments growth has been driven by strong collaboration between FinTechs, banks, regulators, and payment networks, guided by an innovation-first, India-first mindset. At Cashfree Payments, we collaborate with ecosystem partners to bring industry first innovations to deliver great customer experience. One such innovation is device tokenisation, launched with Mastercard and Visa, which allows customers to use saved cards across multiple businesses, delivering a single-click, repeat-payment experience even for first-time users and boosting conversions by 5%.
Working with HDFC Bank, we introduced issuer tokenisation, directly routing card transactions through the issuer to improve success rates and reliability, also reducing cost of payments for our merchants. We invest in payment infrastructure development as well with our partners. Our in-house acquiring switch provides direct connectivity to Visa and Mastercard, giving us full control over transaction routing and retries, optimising success rates and supporting international expansion for businesses.
Additionally, our in-house UPI switch, in partnership with NSDL Payments Bank, is built to process up to 12,000 transactions per second, ensuring seamless performance during peak sales or high-volume events. Those were just few of the many developments that we do, and we see ecosystem players as innovation partners and think that every fintech player should do that in order to help India shape not just domestic, but international payments as well.
Cross-border payments have traditionally been slow and expensive. What technological innovations has Cashfree introduced to address these pain points?
Cross-border payments have traditionally been slow and expensive, filled with regulatory complexity and low success rates. At Cashfree Payments, we’ve tackled this with an innovation-first and technology-led outlook, enabling us to become one of the first non-bank entities in India to secure and operationalise the RBI’s PA-CB license for both imports and exports.
This license has uniquely positioned us to bridge two critical flows: enabling Indian merchants to sell seamlessly to a global audience and allowing international merchants to reach Indian consumers without the traditional regulatory and operational friction. By embedding compliance into the very rails of payments, we are reimagining what a truly borderless e-commerce experience would look like.
What steps are you taking to support Indian SaaS companies and freelancers in receiving global payments more seamlessly?
For Indian SaaS companies and freelancers, looking to sell globally, cross-border payments have been a significant barrier. International customers often struggle with failed card payments, pricing in INR created confusion, and FX conversion costs only becoming visible after checkout. Imagine this: a customer in London adds a saree from an Indian brand worth Rs 10,000 to their cart. At checkout, the amount shows up in pounds, with the bank adding extra conversion charges and fluctuating exchange rates pushing the cost higher than expected. Confused and frustrated, the customer abandons the cart often.
On top of that, navigating regulatory and tax compliance for remittances is a massive headache, particularly for small businesses in India. These hurdles aren’t just operational, they directly impact the customer experience, leading to lost sales and broken trust. To address these challenges, at Cashfree, we built an International Payment Gateway (IPG) with a mission to empower Indian businesses to sell internationally as seamlessly as they would sell domestically.
Today, we support Indian businesses to sell across 170+ markets and in 140+ currencies, the widest currency conversion that any Indian fintech currently offers. At the heart of the IPG is our Pay Native feature, which allows international customers to see and pay in their local currency—pounds, dollars, euros, dirhams, and more while merchants receive settlements in rupees. With no hidden fees or unexpected charges, this transparency builds trust, reduces cart abandonment, and gives global shoppers the confidence to purchase as naturally as they would in their local stores.
How are you scaling your payment gateway for international merchants to enable global businesses to sell in India?
Global businesses struggle to sell into India, primarily because they can’t support the payment methods Indian consumers actually use. Most international gateways don’t integrate UPI, RuPay, or Indian net banking. Those that do, often require merchants to set up local entities, navigate compliance frameworks, endure high transaction failure rates and FX losses, making it difficult to tap into India’s rapidly growing digital consumer base. On the other hand, for Indian shoppers, the biggest hurdle while buying from an international site is that of not being able to pay the way they trust. The result: lost sales for international merchants and frustrated Indian consumers.
Cashfree Payments’ Import Stack was purpose-built to change this. Built under the RBI’s PA-CB framework, it is the first licensed solution that enables global merchants to collect INR payments through India’s most preferred local payment methods, without needing to establish an Indian presence.
What powers this seamless experience is our robust stack that includes automated invoice verification, direct onboarding of foreign entities, zero-fee chargeback tools, a checkout experience tailored for Indian consumers and faster settlement in Indian currency. For Indian shoppers, this translates to a truly local checkout: familiar payment methods, no hidden fees, and full transparency. For merchants, it means instant access to one of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce markets, higher conversion rates, and the ability to scale confidently.
How is Cashfree integrating AI and machine learning into fraud detection and risk management for cross-border payments?
Cross-border transactions carry elevated risks, from fraud and regulatory breaches to sanctioned entity exposure. At Cashfree Payments, we address this with a multilayered risk management system that combines compliance checks with AI-driven intelligence. Every merchant and transaction is screened against global watchlists, ensuring high-risk entities never enter the flow. Machine learning models monitor transactions in real time to detect anomalies like sudden spikes in volume, chargeback patterns, or invoice mismatches, allowing us to flag fraud before it impacts merchants or consumers.
A standout example of this innovation is invoice verification under the RBI’s PA-CB framework. By applying OCR and machine learning, we have automated this mandatory step to the point where 98% of invoices are verified automatically in under two minutes, a leap that drastically cuts processing times while strengthening compliance. By embedding AI, ML, and tokenization where they meaningfully reduce friction, our cross-border payment stack delivers proactive, context-aware risk control. For businesses, this means the confidence to scale globally without being burdened by manual risk checks, and for consumers, it means a trusted checkout experience where their data and money remain protected.
editor@thefoundermedia.com
