Cashfree Payments enables UPI acceptance for merchants in 40 markets

By Puja Sharma

Capability expansion will allow global merchants to offer UPI, domestic cards, and net banking without establishing local infrastructure in India

Cashfree Payments, an India-based licensed cross-border payment provider, has announced that its cross-border payments suite is now fully operational for businesses across 40 countries through partnership and direct integration, spanning North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

With this capability expansion, businesses in these markets can accept payments from Indian consumers through local payment methods like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), RuPay cards,  debit and credit cards across major networks in India, and net banking from their Indian users and customers without establishing a local entity in India.

Cashfree Payments is now enabling global businesses in eCcommerce, SaaS, travel, and digital goods seeking to access India’s fast-growing consumer base where payment localisation is directly tied to conversion. Indian consumers overwhelmingly prefer domestic payment methods, and the absence of localised checkout is a known drop-off point for foreign merchants.

Commenting on this expansion, Akash Sinha, Co-founder & CEO, Cashfree Payments said, Indian consumers are used to paying by local methods like UPI or RuPay credit or debit cards. Entering this market without offering these payment methods has a direct impact on customer conversions. We wanted to bridge this gap for international merchants and make it easier for them to tap into the growing consumer economy of India. These capabilities are currently availed by merchants in these 40 countries, but can be extended to other global merchants in other countries too.”

India’s consumer economy is set to become the second largest in the world by 2030, growing by 46%. Despite this growth, international businesses find it very difficult to enter the Indian market. Most international businesses rely on international card networks to receive payments from Indian consumers. This excludes a large portion of Indian consumers who do not have credit cards and those who have not activated international payments on their cards. Due to this, failure rates on cards are as high as 40%. With integrations with Cashfree Payments, international businesses will now experience payments success rate of 88%+ by collecting through India’s local payment methods.

The payments company would enable businesses in these countries to tap into the Indian market through partnership with global payment aggregators and through direct integration with businesses. As the company targets processing $250–300 million in cross-border payments monthly, it is actively looking to deepen its network of global payment aggregator partnerships and expand into more countries.