Cross-border payments have long been dominated by legacy banking networks, but a new generation of fintechs is challenging that model. Among them is Skydo, which has received approval to operate in Canada, opening a payments corridor between India and North America and becoming one of the few Indian fintechs with direct regulatory authorization in an overseas market.
The firm will operate under Canada’s Retail Payment Activities framework, which is overseen by the Bank of Canada.
With this approval, Skydo will support payment flows between India and Canada, expanding its footprint in a market with significant trade and services activity. The move could also serve as a step toward expansion across North America.
A Different Model
Skydo’s platform differs from the traditional cross-border payments model, where transactions often move through a chain of correspondent banks connected by networks such as Swift.
Instead, the company provides collection accounts that allow small businesses and freelancers to create virtual local currency accounts in other countries. This allows them to receive payments from international customers and online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon while offering greater transparency around fees and exchange rates.
These challenges have long been associated with cross-border payments, where businesses frequently face delays, high costs, and limited visibility into transaction fees. Such frictions can make international expansion more difficult, particularly for smaller businesses seeing access to global markets.
On a Global Scale
Skydo’s expansion also reflects the increasingly international ambitions of India’s payments sector. India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has become one of the world’s largest real-time payments systems, surpassing the payments volume processed by Visa and Alipay.
This has driven growth in India’s payments sector, and the nation’s central bank has actively explored new integrations for the platform. For example, India has considered linking UPI with Ant International’s merchant platform, Alipay+, which already facilitates cross-border payments across Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
This interconnection also represents a broader trend in cross-border payments. Improving global transactions has become a widespread initiative, with many experts pointing to stablecoins or Visa and Mastercard as the most viable solutions.
However, interconnecting existing payments systems is an equally viable approach—one that China has pursued on multiple occasions. For Skydo, the goal of its expansion is to help establish a global trade corridor that could enable intercontinental growth.
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