What will it take for India’s fintech infrastructure to go global?

India's fintech sector has demonstrated its ability to handle massive scale, but as companies venture into cross-border business payments and incorporate AI, new challenges arise. At the TechSparks 2026 event, Skydo's founder, Movin Jain, and PhonePe's CTO, Srijon Biswas, discussed the intricacies of large-scale payments, the importance of transparency in transactions, and the potential of AI in the industry.

The panel, titled 'From domestic scale to global rails: The evolution of India's fintech infrastructure', was moderated by PhonePe's Head of Corporate Communications, Priya Patankar.

Jain points out that despite India's significant export and import figures, only a small fraction of transactions are managed by fintech companies. He suggests that the immediate opportunity lies in raising awareness of the category rather than engaging in price competition. PhonePe's success highlights the significance of making sound architectural decisions early on to scale effectively.

The company has focused on building a strong foundation, including site reliability engineering, a sharded database architecture, and using well-understood technologies.

Regulation in India can actually encourage fintech companies to establish best practices, but the real engineering challenge comes from the country's vast scale and diversity. PhonePe faced difficulties integrating with various merchants across states and cities due to the prevalence of different systems. To manage these complexities, the company is exploring additional layers of abstraction to facilitate international expansion without replicating its entire existing stack in each new market.

Transparency is another crucial aspect of cross-border payments. Jain emphasizes the need for businesses to understand the exchange rates, foreign exchange charges, and the calculation of final amounts. Skydo is working towards educating its customers about these costs and helping them identify potential savings. For instance, if a business receives a $5,000 payment from an international client, transparency would allow the company to know the expected rupee amount and the expected arrival time, as well as the prevailing exchange rate.