EximPe gets final PA-CB licence to process UPI cross-border payments

EximPe, a cross-border payment startup, has received final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India for the Payment Aggregator Cross Border (PA-CB) licence. 

The approval allows EximPe to enable global merchants to collect payments from Indian customers through UPI and other local payment methods, with settlements into offshore accounts.

With the PA-CB licence, EximPe can allow international merchants and payment platforms to collect via UPI, cards, wallets, net banking, and bank transfers from India without setting up a local Indian entity. The company said this will help improve payment success rates and reduce friction for cross-border collections.

Prior to receiving the licence, EximPe operated as a technology service provider to banking partners and has facilitated over $500 million in bank-led cross-border trade payments across Asia corridors. The company has now transitioned to operating directly as a cross-border payment aggregator under the RBI framework.

According to EximPe, it aims to process $1 billion in annualised UPI-led cross-border transactions over the next 24 months.

Founded by Arjun Zacharia, EximPe operates across corridors such as India–China, India–Hong Kong, India–Singapore, and India–ASEAN, and focuses on enabling compliant, UPI-led cross-border payment infrastructure for global businesses.

EximPe has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Leo Capital, with participation from Beta Lab, RB Investments, along with several angel investors.

In recent months, RBI approved online, offline and cross border payment aggregation for around half a dozen companies. These include Razorpay POS, Paytm, Razorpay, Easebuzz, PayU, Pine Labs and Airpay. With these clearances, the firms are authorised to offer a full stack of payment aggregator services across ecommerce transactions, in store merchant payments and cross border payment flows.