Indian fintech giant Pine Labs has joined forces with Sri Lankan payment solutions provider WEBXPAY to deliver a seamless Indian payment experience to merchants across Sri Lanka. The landmark collaboration marks the first Payment Aggregator-on-Payment Aggregator (PA-on-PA) cross-border partnership established under India's PA-CB framework — a regulatory milestone that is set to redefine how Indian tourists transact abroad. With UPI, credit and debit cards, and net banking now available at Sri Lankan merchant points, the partnership arrives at a moment of surging bilateral tourism and growing economic interdependence between the two neighbouring nations.
A Historic First in Cross-Border Payments
The Pine Labs and WEBXPAY partnership is not merely a business deal — it represents a structural breakthrough in South Asia's digital payments landscape. Operating under India's PA-CB (Payment Aggregator – Cross Border) framework, this is the first time two payment aggregators have entered a direct cross-border arrangement of this nature. The framework, overseen by the Reserve Bank of India, enables Indian payment methods to be accepted seamlessly at foreign merchant locations, reducing friction for Indian travellers and creating new revenue opportunities for overseas businesses. Sri Lanka is the first live market under this arrangement, with Southeast Asian countries expected to follow in subsequent phases of the rollout.
Why Sri Lanka Makes Perfect Sense
The timing and geography of this partnership are no coincidence. India is Sri Lanka's largest and fastest-growing tourism source market by a significant margin. In 2025 alone, over 5.3 lakh Indian travellers visited Sri Lanka, a figure that underscores the enormous transactional potential waiting to be unlocked. Indian tourists have long been accustomed to the convenience of UPI-based payments at home, and the absence of familiar payment options abroad has historically been a friction point. By enabling Indian payment methods directly at Sri Lankan merchant terminals, Pine Labs and WEBXPAY are effectively removing one of the last remaining barriers to a fully comfortable travel experience for Indian visitors.
For Sri Lankan merchants, the benefits are equally compelling. Accepting Indian payment methods means tapping into a high-volume, digitally active consumer base that is already comfortable spending through their smartphones. Hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, and tourist attractions across Sri Lanka can now cater to Indian visitors without requiring cash transactions or complicated currency exchange processes.
How the Technology Works
At the heart of this partnership is Pine Labs' robust payment infrastructure, which has already processed billions of transactions across India. Through the PA-on-PA model, Pine Labs acts as the Indian payment aggregator, while WEBXPAY serves as the local aggregator in Sri Lanka. When an Indian tourist makes a purchase at a WEBXPAY-enabled merchant terminal, the transaction is routed through Pine Labs' systems on the Indian side, ensuring compliance with RBI regulations while delivering a familiar checkout experience. Indian consumers can pay using UPI apps such as PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm, as well as through Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay cards, or via net banking portals — all without needing to carry large amounts of foreign currency.
Broader Implications for Regional Digital Commerce
Beyond tourism, this partnership signals a broader shift in how South and Southeast Asian economies are approaching digital payment interoperability. Governments and financial regulators across the region have increasingly recognised that harmonising payment infrastructure can accelerate trade, boost tourism revenues, and deepen economic integration. India's UPI has already been extended to several countries including Singapore, UAE, France, and Nepal. The PA-CB framework takes this ambition a step further by creating a scalable, regulation-backed model for private sector payment aggregators to expand internationally in a structured manner.
With Southeast Asia identified as the next expansion frontier, the Pine Labs and WEBXPAY model could soon be replicated in markets such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia — all of which receive significant numbers of Indian tourists and business travellers annually. For Pine Labs, the international push aligns with its broader strategy of becoming a global payments infrastructure player, having already established a presence in the Middle East and Southeast Asia in recent years.
What This Means for Indian Travellers
For the average Indian traveller heading to Sri Lanka, the practical impact is straightforward and significant. Scanning a QR code to pay for a beach resort meal, tapping a card at a Colombo souvenir shop, or completing a hotel checkout through a familiar UPI interface — these everyday conveniences are now a reality. The partnership eliminates the need to pre-load foreign currency wallets or worry about international transaction fees on cards that do not support multi-currency features.
As digital payment habits become deeply embedded in Indian consumer behaviour, the expectation of seamless transactions does not stop at the border. Pine Labs and WEBXPAY have recognised this shift and built an infrastructure to match it. Their collaboration sets a powerful precedent for cross-border payment innovation in the region, one that places the traveller's convenience and the merchant's growth opportunity at the very centre of the solution.