Mumbai : airpay Payment Services has secured approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a cross-border payment aggregator, completing its authorisations under the unified payment aggregator (PA) framework. With this, the company is licensed to operate across PA-O (online), PA-P (physical/POS/QR) and PA-CB (cross-border) categories.
This milestone positions airpay as a homegrown full-stack payments infrastructure provider for Indian enterprises, D2C brands and SMEs, a single compliant platform for collections, payouts and settlements whether they sell in deep-tier Bharat or global markets. The company expects this launch to accelerate scale, projecting a 30–40% rise in processing volumes over the next 6-12 months and anticipating 20%+ revenue contribution from cross-border flows alongside onboarding 50,000+ merchants in the same period.
“Indian business growth is no longer domestic-only. Our exporters, SaaS firms, digital merchants and local retailers are all engaging globally, and they need reliability, compliance and speed in payments,” said Kunal Jhunjhunwala, Founder of airpay Payment Services. “RBI’s approval positions us to support that shift responsibly and at scale. It strengthens our ability to provide Indian businesses a regulated yet seamless bridge to make or collect payments from Mumbai, Manipur or to Madrid,” he further added.
The PA-CB framework brings cross-border payment facilitation under direct RBI supervision with requirements around governance standards, escrow management and foreign-exchange regulations. For businesses, this results in reduced compliance overhead, lower settlement risks, and greater transparency in international commerce.
The timing aligns with India’s shift to global trade. From export-led MSMEs and D2C brands targeting Europe, Middle East and SEA, to service providers and subscription businesses scaling internationally, cross-border e-commerce volumes continue to expand on both the import and export fronts.
India’s payment aggregation ecosystem is entering a phase where reliability, regulatory discipline and full-stack infrastructure are not optional but essential for growth. As businesses scale across online, offline and international markets, they need payment partners who remove friction, reduce compliance risk and ensure money movement remains fully within RBI and FEMA guardrails. The companies that can prove end-to-end compliance while maintaining uptime, security and speed will be the ones powering India’s grassroot and export-led growth while enabling SMEs to seize scaling opportunities without operational or financial hurdles.
With all three licences secured, airpay is now positioned to support the next decade of Indian commerce, enabling Bharat-to-World payment flows while continuing to strengthen the country’s regulated digital-payments backbone.
