PhonePe Gets In-Principle UAE Approval, Its First Move Outside India

PhonePe's First Step Outside India

PhonePe announced on September 22, 2026 that it received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) for two payment licenses: Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes (RPSCS) and Stored Value Facilities (SVF). The company's first international regulatory approval, according to fintech trade outlet Fintechly, marks the UAE as PhonePe's first market outside India.

Ritesh Pai, chief executive and executive director of international payments at PhonePe, said the UAE's "vision and regulatory environment make it an ideal setting" for the company's international expansion. He said PhonePe intends to combine its technology with local partnerships to support trade corridors linking the UAE, India, and global markets.

PhonePe processes close to 12 billion transactions a month worth roughly ₹14 lakh crore, according to Fintechly, across more than 700 million registered users and 50 million merchants in India. That's a 45% share of India's UPI payments market. Walmart owns 71.77% of the company through WM Digital Commerce Holdings.

Building on Local Rails, Not Importing India's Stack

PhonePe already has a foothold in the UAE. Through a partnership with NPCI International Payments Limited, Indian travelers can already scan local QR codes and pay at NEOPAY and Network International terminals, Business Standard reported. But that's a cross-border acceptance arrangement layered on top of India's UPI rails.

The CBUAE approval is different. It's a step toward building a locally regulated payments platform in the UAE, working with UAE banks, licensed payment service providers, and technology companies once final approval comes through.

PhonePe says it wants to integrate with Aani, the UAE's instant payment platform, and Jaywan, the UAE's domestic card scheme, positioning itself to support those systems rather than compete with them. Business Standard reported that PhonePe co-founder and CEO Sameer Nigam said earlier this month that the licenses would let the company offer consumer payment instruments like wallets and gift cards, plus e-payment acceptance infrastructure for merchants.

The approval is in-principle only. PhonePe still needs final regulatory sign-off from the CBUAE before it can begin commercial operations. The company has not disclosed a launch date or named which UAE banks or payment service providers it's working with, according to both Fintechly and TechNode.

The IPO That Didn't Happen, and Conflicting Numbers on Why

The UAE push comes months after PhonePe shelved its planned IPO. But sources disagree on the details.

Fintechly reported PhonePe was targeting a $15 billion valuation before pulling the offering in March 2026, citing shifting global market conditions. Business Standard and Demivolt, by contrast, reported PhonePe paused the IPO in March amid the war in West Asia and heightened market volatility, with Demivolt putting the targeted valuation at $9 billion to $10.5 billion and the potential raise at up to $1.5 billion. TechNode, citing Reuters, backed the lower $9 billion to $10.5 billion range.

There's a meaningful gap between $9-10.5 billion and $15 billion for the same shelved IPO, and none of the sources reconcile it. The $15 billion figure appears as an outlier relative to the other three reports, which converge on the lower range.

What Comes Next

PhonePe's UAE ambitions sit inside a broader pattern: international payment firms increasingly plug into a host country's own instant-payment and card infrastructure rather than exporting their home-market systems wholesale. For a company that controls nearly half of India's UPI volume, choosing to build around Aani and Jaywan rather than transplanting its India stack signals how it plans to operate abroad.

What's still unknown: when CBUAE will grant final authorization, which UAE banks or licensed payment providers PhonePe will partner with, and whether the company revives its IPO plans once the UAE business is running. None of the six reports reviewed offer a timeline on any of those questions.