Indian Fintech Leaders Outline Strategy for Global Expansion

Indian fintech executives at the TechSparks 2026 conference identified cross-border payments and scalable architecture as the primary drivers for the industry’s next phase of growth. Representatives from Skydo and PhonePe discussed the challenges of moving beyond domestic markets and integrating artificial intelligence into financial infrastructure.

Expanding Cross-Border Capabilities

Skydo founder Movin Jain stated that cross-border payments represent a significant, untapped opportunity for fintech firms. While India’s annual trade volume reaches approximately $850 billion in exports and $1 trillion in imports, less than 10% of these transactions are currently processed by fintech companies. Banks continue to dominate this sector.

Jain noted that business-to-business (B2B) payments currently have lower fintech adoption rates than consumer-facing services. He argued that the immediate priority for firms is building awareness among businesses regarding fintech capabilities, rather than competing on pricing. Jain suggested that market competition among fintech players is secondary to educating businesses on alternatives to traditional banking for international transactions.

Scaling Infrastructure and Reliability

Srijon Biswas, Chief Technology Officer at PhonePe, outlined the importance of early architectural decisions in maintaining large-scale systems. According to Biswas, the company established engineering practices and systems at its inception that supported growth increases of 100 to 1,000 times without requiring major overhauls.

PhonePe focused on understanding its technology stack and making deliberate choices regarding its systems. The company implemented a sharded database architecture, built a dedicated site reliability engineering team, and prioritized technologies that were familiar to its engineering staff. Biswas emphasized that these foundational choices allowed the platform to scale without undergoing significant architectural refactoring.