Indian exporters are looking at overseas entities and dual operating structures as geopolitical volatility complicates cross-border payment settlements, said Nagesh Devata, senior vice president for APAC at payment platform Payoneer, in an interview.
Devata said the shift is less about moving out of India and more about building flexibility across markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and the US for payments, operations and future expansion.
“Our customers have so far been able to manage their flows,” Devata said, adding that Indian and South Asian businesses are “thinking more seriously about incorporating in multiple places” so they have alternative routes for money movement if geopolitical conditions change.
Other executives and experts Mint spoke with also said the shift is being driven less by any move away from India and more by the need for better control over collections, treasury and business continuity. As the US-Israel-Iran war-led geopolitical volatility disrupts some trade and payment corridors, exporters are looking to keep more than one jurisdiction open so they have alternative routes for money movement and operations if one market becomes harder to navigate.
They are also trying to manage foreign exchange exposure more efficiently by receiving funds in overseas entities, using part of that money for local business needs and remitting the rest to India later.
The trend is visible across both goods and services , although the cost of compliance and maintaining an overseas office remains a hurdle for smaller firms, they added.
A chief executive and co-founder of a startup in the cross-border fintech space, who works closely with technology companies and software exporters, said the shift is being accelerated by the West Asia war but is not being driven solely by it.
He said there are three broad reasons: some sectors, including crypto platforms, social media apps, dating apps and video-calling businesses, are creating alternative operating structures as a hedge against regulatory uncertainty; consumer internet firms expanding into South-East Asia need local entities to access local payment methods; and many software and software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups want access to global payment firms such as Stripe, which is not operational in India.
A finance manager at a large cross-border payments firm added that places such as Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore are attractive because companies can set up there relatively easily. “In many cases, exporters do not route every payment directly back to India; instead, they collect funds in the overseas entity, use part of that foreign exchange for local business needs, and remit the rest later.”
Also, in some cases, the overseas entity functions as a sales office, while the India entity bills it for services, creating a cleaner arm’s-length structure and simplifying fund management.
Why it matters
The India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) trade corridor is large enough to warrant close monitoring of any disruption. India and the GCC traded goods worth $178.56 billion in 2024-25, with New Delhi’s exports at $56.87 billion and imports at $121.66 billion, accounting for 15.42% of the country’s global trade, according to government data.
Cross-border payments are a relatively new but fast-growing fintech segment in the country, with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) payment aggregator-cross-border framework drawing in both startups and larger firms building export and import payment rails.
For firms operating in India, from global players such as and Stripe to local startups such as Razorpay, BriskPe, Skydo and Xflow, any prolonged disruption in these corridors can affect collections, settlement timelines and customer behaviour.
India’s broader cross-border payments opportunity is already substantial: the country’s goods and services trade added up to more than $1.6 trillion in 2023, based on World Bank and World Trade Organization estimates compiled by Banco Santander and the World Bank’s World Integrated Trade Solution.
For now, Devata said Payoneer’s customers have so far been able to manage their flows despite the disruption. But he added that businesses are becoming more deliberate about how they structure their overseas presence. Companies that may once have incorporated in only one foreign market are now thinking more strategically about having multiple jurisdictions available, he said. That, in turn, gives them alternative routes for money movement and business operations if geopolitical events disrupt one market.
The war effect
Mint on 15 March that the West Asia war had slowed collections and delayed settlements for some Indian cross-border fintech firms serving exporters, especially in goods-linked corridors.
Kunal Jhunjhunwala, the founder of Airpay Payment Services, said the strain is beginning to show up in the plumbing of cross-border payments, even though there has been no broader system failure yet.
He said settlement in some GCC corridors now takes 24-48 hours longer than before, while some currency pairs are seeing slightly higher rejection rates and more reconciliation mismatches than usual. “The actual level of disruption customers face lies beyond their current state of worry. Exporters are calling in for status checks far more frequently than they were even three weeks ago,” he added.
He also said the pressure is most visible among Indian exporters of IT services, logistics support and construction-linked goods to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman.
“Many of these companies depend on two or three large customers in the region who already take 45-60 days to pay, which means even small delays can create funding and cash-flow stress. By contrast, freelancers and SaaS firms are relatively less exposed because their customer relationships are usually more diversified,” he added.