The announcements span both directions of cross-border finance, enabling overseas businesses to collect payments from Indian customers, helping global investors access Indian financial products and giving Indian retail investors a regulated route to invest in international markets.
Xflow, a cross-border payments platform, announced a partnership with HSBC to enable global businesses to collect payments from Indian customers through UPI, net banking and cards.
The solution, unveiled at the fintech fest in Mumbai on September 10, is designed to allow overseas businesses to accept local payment methods without setting up an entity in India.
The company said the offering is aimed at businesses such as SaaS and technology platforms, online travel companies, edtech providers and merchants selling physical goods to Indian customers. Xflow said payments can be settled in major currencies to global destinations.
The announcement comes as international businesses face challenges in accepting payments from Indian customers. Xflow said fewer than 70% of international card transactions succeed in India, while recurring payments can face additional hurdles because of local data and mandate requirements.
Separately, Rupeeflo launched nuvanta, a technology platform aimed at helping financial institutions onboard overseas investors into Indian financial products.
The platform brings identity and document verification, e-notarisation, digital signing, credit-risk analytics and global payments into a single workflow. Rupeeflo said the platform is designed for NRIs, OCIs, foreign nationals and overseas entities across more than 60 countries.
According to the company, the platform is being used by more than 20 financial institutions and has helped onboard more than 25,000 global investors. It supports use cases including NRE/NRO and FCNR account opening, demat onboarding, FDI and FPI processes, and financial journeys linked to GIFT City.The announcements also point to growing efforts to use GIFT City’s International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) as a route for cross-border financial activity.
On September 11, SBICAP Securities announced a partnership with Appreciate Broking IFSC to provide retail investors access to international investments through the global-access platforms of India INX and NSE IX in GIFT City.
The platform will provide access to more than 8,000 US-listed stocks and global ETFs, with fractional investing starting from $1, according to the companies. Investors will be able to access both exchange-linked global access providers through a single onboarding process.
For Indian investors, the development comes as interest in international diversification has increased, particularly in areas such as technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence and other global growth themes. The GIFT City route provides a regulated framework for such investments, while the applicable remittance, tax and investment rules continue to determine how much an individual can invest overseas and the costs involved.