GFF 2025: Cross-Border Growth with Indian Customers

📊 Three stories from the past week point to a common theme: what really makes fintech models viable in 2025? 1️⃣ IPO momentum: SumUp is preparing to go public. Unlike BNPL firms such as Klarna, its model centers on merchant services in Europe. The question is whether investors see stable transaction revenue as more attractive than consumer credit growth. 2️⃣ Stablecoin expansion: In Saudi Arabia, Google Pay and Alipay+ are rolling out stablecoin-enabled payment options, while Tamara secured $2.4B in financing. This isn’t just a regional story. It’s a signal that stablecoins are moving deeper into mainstream financial flows. The open question is how governance and reserve management keep pace with adoption. 3️⃣ Regulatory shifts: A U.S. court just struck down the Fed’s debit swipe-fee rule as too generous. For issuers and merchants, the debate is whether capped fees support competition or risk choking innovation in payment infrastructure. For me, the common thread is sustainability. Growth headlines may grab attention, but long-term viability in fintech comes down to three factors: 🔹 Proven unit economics 🔹 Regulatory resilience across markets 🔹 Ability to scale without eroding trust That’s the bar IPOs, stablecoins, and payment networks will need to clear if they want staying power in the next phase of fintech. #Fintech #Payments #Stablecoins

When I first started following fintech in Asia, I was struck by how different it felt compared to Europe or the US. The West has neat narratives: open banking, interchange wars, BNPL. Asia? It’s messier, more fragmented, and honestly more interesting. 🔹 Local specialists like Grab, GCash, Paytm, and GoTo win by embedding themselves into daily life, aligning with regulators, and owning distribution. 🔹 Global platforms like Wise, Stripe, and Revolut thrive by abstracting away complexity, standardising infrastructure, and connecting Asia to the world. The real battle isn’t features, it’s policy and platforms. In India, UPI tilts the field in favor of local champions. In Southeast Asia, fragmentation creates opportunities for global rail development. For me, the lesson is this: Asia won’t crown a single winner. The future belongs to both locals who build trust layers and globals who build efficiency layers. 👉 Full piece here: https://lnkd.in/gzkgyPHt #Fintech #Asia #Payments #DigitalFinance #Strategy

Cross-Border Transactions from GIFT City: India’s Global Gateway GIFT City is emerging as a bridge between India and the world—where regulations, innovation, and trust come together. From seamless cross-border flows to fintech-driven PSP licensing and payment rails, it’s positioning India at the center of global financial exchange. As capital, compliance, and technology converge here, GIFT City is proving that the future of global finance can be built in India. #GIFTCity #CrossBorder #Payments #FinTech #DigitalIndia

PayPal commits $100M to drive growth in Middle East and Africa #PayPal, led by President and CEO Alex Chriss, has announced a $100 million commitment to accelerate its expansion across the Middle East and Africa. The investment will be deployed through minority investments, acquisitions, PayPal Ventures funding, as well as technology and talent development in the region. This initiative follows the launch of PayPal’s first regional hub in Dubai in April 2025, strengthening its presence in a region with rapidly growing digital payment adoption. PayPal Ventures has already backed several leading fintechs in the area, including buy-now-pay-later platform Tabby | تابي, Egyptian payments provider Paymob, and South African API #fintech Stitch. The new allocation signals PayPal’s intent to deepen its role in building the local fintech ecosystem and supporting cross-border digital commerce. According to Chriss, the strategic investment is designed to empower entrepreneurs to scale faster, expand globally, and unlock new opportunities in the digital economy. With this $100 million commitment, PayPal is positioning itself as a long-term partner in advancing financial innovation across two of the world’s fastest-growing regions. The article on Finextra in the first comment.

An insightful day at ETA Transact Tech NYC! It’s always energizing to be surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the payments industry. The event brought together an incredible panel of experts — from investment analysts and regulation experts to leading payment innovators — all sharing valuable perspectives on where our industry is headed. Key themes that resonated with me: 💡 Evolving industry trends and how investment dollars are being realigned toward innovation and efficiency. 💡 The future of stablecoins and policy shifts under the Genius Act, signaling deeper integration of digital assets in regulated finance. 💡 The rise of agentic commerce — redefining customer engagement and reshaping the future of payments. 💡 The growing importance of software-led distribution and value-added services as the real engines of growth, even as payment volumes plateau. It was also encouraging to see how service providers are putting merchants at the center — offering technology and tools that enhance revenue, cash flow, and profitability while simplifying the payments experience. For anyone building or investing in payments technology, these insights underscore one thing: the future belongs to platforms that combine intelligent infrastructure with embedded value. #ETATransactTech #PaymentsInnovation #Fintech #Stablecoins #AgenticCommerce #DigitalPayments #FintechLeadership

PayPal Commits $100M to Drive Growth in MiddleEast and Africa PayPal, led by President and CEO Alex Chriss, has announced a $100 million commitment to accelerate its expansion across the #MiddleEast and #Africa. The investment will be deployed through minority investments, acquisitions, #PayPal Ventures funding, as well as technology and talent development in the region. This initiative follows the launch of PayPal’s first regional hub in #Dubai in April 2025, strengthening its presence in a region with rapidly growing digital payment adoption. PayPal Ventures has already backed several leading fintechs in the area, including buy-now-pay-later platform Tabby | تابي, Egyptian payments provider Paymob, and South African API fintech Stitch. According to Chriss, the strategic investment is designed to empower entrepreneurs to scale faster, expand globally, and unlock new opportunities in the digital economy. With this $100 million commitment, PayPal is positioning itself as a long-term partner in advancing financial innovation across two of the world's fastest-growing regions. Credit - Finextra

A bank wants to launch a new product. On paper, it sounds simple. In practice, it’s anything but. This is how Saudi startup Stitch is cutting product launch times by a colossal 80% 👇 Take for example, a digital wallet: 🏦 A core-banking vendor provides the ledger. 💳 A foreign provider, often misaligned with rules, issues the cards. 🪪 Another handles KYC checks. ⏳ Result: 6-12 months to launch a single product Take Saudi as an example, for customers in a country (🇸🇦) where 71% of the population is under 35 and accelerating toward being 80% cashless by 2030, that delay clashes with the seamless experiences they are used to in dining, travel, and shopping. What finance has lacked is a platform moment. E-commerce had Shopify, which turned retail infrastructure into a service. Communications had Twilio, which made messaging programmable. Cybersecurity had CNAPP, which unified fragmented tools. Whereas most infrastructure firms start narrow and expand, Stitch took the opposite path, building a full-stack platform from the outset rather than layering modules over time. ⚡ One unified stack from the ledger up 🔗 Ledgers, payments, cards, lending, deposits, onboarding – all in one API 🌍 Compliant to any region ✅ Faster approvals, embedded compliance ⏱️ Result: Products live in under 90 days Stitch recently raised $10M from COTU Ventures, RAED Ventures, and Arbor Ventures, to accelerate their mission of building a unified stack, locally from the ledger up, so banks can launch fast without losing compliance. Get the full piece in your inbox later today by subscribing here 👉 https://lnkd.in/evpRN4tu #mena #saudi #fintech #banking | Mohamed Oueida | Shehan Mohamed | Nora M. Alsarhan | Khaled Lababidi | Wael Nafee

For decades, size was the moat. Today, size slows you down. Legacy payment providers built their empires through M&A - stitching together decades of acquisitions into massive, unwieldy systems. The result? Integration nightmares, innovation bottlenecks, and technical debt that compounds with every "enhancement." Meanwhile, the market has shifted. Cloud-native architecture, API-first design, and developer experience have become the real competitive advantages. Agility trumps scale when your customers need to launch in new markets within weeks, not quarters. The numbers tell the story: Worldline's stock is down 60% while Stripe and Adyen continue their growth trajectories. The difference isn't just technology – it's philosophy. One camp is weighed down by legacy ballast, the other built for speed. This is exactly why we designed Hellgate® from the ground up to be composable and API-first. No legacy systems to drag you down. No integration puzzles to solve. Just merchant-centric infrastructure that scales with your ambitions, not against them. The enterprises winning today aren't necessarily the biggest - they're the most adaptable. They've realized that in payments, like everywhere else, scale without agility becomes a liability. Ready to make scale and agility work together? Let's talk about how Hellgate® can accelerate your payment strategy without the legacy baggage. #PaymentOrchestration #EnterprisePayments #FinTech

Payment infrastructures don’t necessarily slow down because of bad code. They slow down because of tight coupling of features and services. The more logic you hardwire into one platform, the harder it becomes to evolve. If “slow delivery” has ever blocked your product roadmap, let’s talk. Faster payments aren’t just about better code. They’re about better architecture.

By 2030, the global digital payments market is projected to surpass $24.3 trillion (Allied Market Research). The scale of opportunity is unprecedented, but the challenge is accessibility—many businesses still struggle with fragmented systems and limited resources. PayNation’s vision is to change that: to make commerce easy and accessible across markets by enabling partners to sell value-added payment solutions. That means giving partners tools that do more than just process payments. They open doors to efficiency, loyalty, and growth. Accessibility isn’t a dream. It’s the future. And with PayNation, it’s already here. #paynation #commerce #paymentsolutions #growth #fintech