How Pay10’s UAE-India push could reshape business travel
Pay10’s UAE-India fintech expansion is bigger than a product launch
Pay10 is emerging as a notable payments player linking two of the busiest commercial corridors in the wider Arab-Asia region: the UAE and India. The company now operates on both sides of that route with a regulated payments business in India and a separately licensed platform in Dubai, giving it a practical base to serve merchants, travellers and cross-border users moving between the two markets.
In India, Pay10 says it is authorised by the Reserve Bank of India as an online payment aggregator, a payment aggregator for cross-border transactions and a prepaid payment instruments issuer. On its India-facing platform, the company also markets Pay10 World as a cross-border payments suite and says it can help international merchants collect from Indian customers in INR while receiving settlement in foreign currencies including AED, USD, EUR, GBP and SGD. In the UAE, Pay10 says it is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE and has built out services spanning digital wallets, payment aggregation, merchant acquiring, domestic transfers and cross-border remittances. The company’s own UAE timeline says it secured Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Category II and Stored Value Facility licences in 2024, became the country’s first licensed Third-Party Provider under the CBUAE open-finance framework in 2025, and received a 2026 exchange-business licence for cross-border remittances.
Why this matters for business between the UAE and India
The central business case is straightforward: companies trading, selling or operating across the UAE and India need faster collections, cleaner compliance and less friction in foreign-exchange settlement. Pay10’s proposition is built around that need. Its India platform says global merchants can sell into India without a local legal setup, collect INR from Indian customers, and settle to international accounts in preferred currencies, while Pay10 handles the regulated authorised-dealer banking corridor and FX conversion.
That is especially relevant in the UAE, where Dubai continues to market itself as both a tourism powerhouse and a global business hub. Official data from Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism shows the emirate welcomed 19.59 million international overnight visitors in 2025, up 5% from 18.72 million in 2024. Dubai’s media office also said the city secured 504 successful bids in 2025 to host events through 2029, underlining the scale of incoming meetings, exhibitions and incentive travel. A payment provider that can make checkout, settlement and reconciliation easier for hotels, event operators, retailers and travel-linked merchants has a clear addressable market in that environment.
For Indian businesses, the opportunity runs in the other direction too. The UAE is one of India’s most important overseas commercial and travel markets. Dubai Airports said India remained DXB’s largest country market in 2025, accounting for 11.9 million guests. That level of traffic creates obvious demand for smooth payment experiences across shopping, hospitality, remittances and service bookings.
What changes for merchants
For merchants, the strongest near-term effect is likely to be operational rather than dramatic. Instead of piecing together separate payment gateways, wallet tools, FX arrangements and compliance workflows, a unified provider can reduce onboarding time and simplify reporting.
- UAE merchants serving Indian tourists or customers may benefit from easier acceptance and settlement structures tied to Indian payment behaviour.
- Indian merchants targeting Gulf-based buyers can potentially collect more efficiently from overseas demand and settle in major currencies including AED.
- Travel and hospitality operators can use digital wallets, payment links and app-based collection tools to reduce checkout friction and manual processing.
Pay10’s own UAE brand guidelines explicitly pitch the service to merchants as a faster, lower-cost and more secure way to accept payments, with instant settlements and better cash-flow control. While those are company claims rather than independently audited performance benchmarks, they explain the commercial logic behind its rollout.
The tourism angle: why payments matter as much as visas and flights
For readers in Egypt, the tourism angle is the most interesting part of the story. Travel between the Gulf and South Asia is no longer just about airline seats and hotel inventory; it is also about whether visitors can pay easily once they arrive. Friction at the payment stage can undermine retail spending, restaurant sales, transport usage and even repeat visitation.
India’s digital-payments ecosystem is particularly important here because UPI has become the dominant consumer payment rail in the country. Pay10’s India platform says UPI accounts for more than 85% of digital payments in India. Separately, the Government of India said in January 2026 that Indian travellers can already use UPI for merchant payments in several countries including the UAE, while foreign visitors to India have also been a policy focus through products such as UPI One World, which NPCI says can be used across 700 million+ QR codes in India.
That matters because a tourist who can pay instantly is more likely to spend more confidently. In the UAE, that supports malls, hotels, restaurants, transport providers and attractions. In India, it supports the broad travel economy from hotels and restaurants to local shopping and transport. A company like Pay10 is not creating tourism demand on its own, but it can remove one of the everyday irritants that shapes tourist satisfaction and merchant conversion.
Open finance could expand the story beyond checkout
One under-reported detail is Pay10’s positioning inside the UAE’s open-finance buildout. The CBUAE’s Open Finance Regulation, issued in July 2025, created the framework for licensed providers to initiate services and facilitate secure data sharing. Pay10 says it became the first licensed Third-Party Provider under that framework and completed the first live transaction on the CBUAE open-finance platform in August 2025. If that ecosystem scales, the company’s role could go beyond payments into account-linked services such as smarter onboarding, bank-connected initiation and more tailored consumer or merchant experiences.
Why this story matters from an Egypt perspective
For Egypt-based readers following the wider Arab region, Pay10’s UAE-India strategy is worth watching because it reflects a bigger regional trend: Gulf markets are investing in regulated payment infrastructure not only for residents, but also for trade corridors, tourism spending and cross-border digital commerce. The UAE’s role as a gateway between Arab markets and Asia means fintech upgrades there can ripple into travel, remittances and business networks far beyond Dubai.
Pay10 is still far from being the only player in this space, and its long-term influence will depend on merchant adoption, pricing, execution and trust. But the fundamentals behind its expansion are real. Dubai is handling record visitor volumes, India’s digital payment rails are deeply entrenched, and official policy in both markets continues to favour interoperable, regulated digital finance. In that context, Pay10’s UAE-India solution looks less like a niche fintech launch and more like part of the plumbing for the next phase of Gulf-Asia commerce and tourism.
The bigger takeaway is simple: when payments become easier across borders, business trips turn into faster deals, tourists spend with less hesitation, and merchants capture more of that movement. That is where Pay10 could make its most visible impact in both the UAE and India over the coming period.