Skydo, a Bengaluru-based cross-border payments platform, has secured an international payment licence in Canada, becoming the first Indian cross-border payments company to receive regulatory approval overseas. The licence, granted under Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) and overseen by the Bank of Canada, marks Skydo’s first regulatory milestone outside India. With this approval, the company can now facilitate two-way payment flows between India and Canada, offering both local collections and payouts.
What Does the Canadian Licence Mean for Skydo?
The Canadian licence transforms Skydo from an India-focused export collections platform into a multi-country payments operator. Before this approval, Skydo primarily helped Indian exporters receive payments from overseas clients. Now, the company can support both inbound and outbound payment flows across the India-Canada corridor.
The licence enables Skydo to offer local collections and payouts in Canada, meaning Canadian businesses can receive payments from Indian clients locally and Indian businesses can pay Canadian vendors and service providers without going through multiple intermediaries. This covers a broad range of use cases including trade payments, education fee remittances, tourism transactions, and business services.
Skydo plans to extend its offerings to Canadian businesses as well, helping them manage global collections, maintain local accounts, and process supplier payments across multiple countries. The company’s transparent flat-fee pricing model, which charges $19 for transactions up to $2,000, $29 for transactions up to $10,000, and 0.3% for higher-value transactions, will continue across all corridors.
The India-Canada Trade Corridor
Skydo’s entry into Canada comes at a time when bilateral trade between the two countries is gaining strong momentum. Two-way merchandise trade between India and Canada stood at approximately CAD 13.6 billion in 2025, while bilateral services trade exceeded CAD 19.6 billion. The two countries have set an ambitious target of reaching USD 50 billion in bilateral trade by 2030, up from around USD 17 billion currently.
India and Canada are actively negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with both sides aiming to conclude talks by the end of 2026. In May 2026, the two nations launched the Canada-India Trade and Investment Forum to deepen commercial partnerships. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to India earlier in 2026 gave fresh momentum to the relationship, with both sides agreeing to fast-track the trade pact.
Key sectors driving the India-Canada economic corridor include information technology, pharmaceuticals, clean energy, critical minerals, agri-food, and education. Canada is home to a large Indian diaspora of over 1.8 million people, which drives significant remittance and education-related payment flows. The corridor also supports substantial trade in services outsourcing, IT consulting, and student mobility.
Skydo’s Regulatory Journey
Skydo was founded in 2022 by Srivatsan Sridhar (former senior executive at Rupeek and Ola) and Movin Jain (former director of product at PhonePe and vice president at Meesho). The company was built to solve payment friction for Indian exporters, a problem Srivatsan experienced firsthand through his family’s automotive export business.
The company’s regulatory journey within India has been equally significant. In January 2025, Skydo received in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator Cross Border (PA-CB), becoming one of the first fintechs to secure this licence. It received final authorisation in January 2026 for export-related payment collections. Separately, in May 2026, Skydo obtained regulatory approval for outward remittance flows under the PA-CB framework and received in-principle approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) at GIFT City IFSC, the International Financial Services Centre in Gujarat.
The RBI introduced the PA-CB framework in October 2023 to bring all entities facilitating cross-border payment transactions under direct regulation. Non-bank entities must meet stringent requirements including a minimum networth of ₹15 crore at the time of application, increasing to ₹25 crore by March 31, 2026, along with compliance on customer due diligence, data localisation, and anti-money laundering norms.
Skydo has raised approximately $20 million in total funding, with a $10 million Series A round in December 2025 led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, with participation from Elevation Capital and Eximus Ventures. The company serves over 40,000 businesses across more than 50 Indian cities, processes transactions in over 32 currencies, and is targeting $5 billion in annualised payment volumes within two years.
Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act
Skydo’s Canadian licence was granted under the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA), a comprehensive regulatory framework that received royal assent in June 2021 and came into full effect in phases. The Bank of Canada is the supervisory authority for the RPAA, responsible for registering and supervising payment service providers (PSPs).
The RPAA requires any entity performing retail payment activities in Canada to register with the Bank of Canada. The registration period opened in November 2024, and since September 8, 2025, PSPs have been required to have established risk management and funds safeguarding frameworks. The Act covers five payment functions including holding funds on behalf of end users, initiating electronic funds transfers, authorising or facilitating payment instructions, and providing clearing or settlement services.
Compliance under the RPAA requires PSPs to meet several obligations:
- Establishing a risk management and incident response framework to identify and mitigate operational risks
- Safeguarding end-user funds in accordance with prescribed regulations
- Registering with the Bank of Canada and submitting annual reports
- Implementing strong anti-money laundering systems, fraud prevention mechanisms, and regular regulatory reporting
The RPAA marked a historic shift for Canada’s payments industry. Before its enactment, retail payment service providers in Canada were not subject to federal oversight specific to their payment activities. The Act brought these entities under formal supervision for the first time, aligning Canada with international standards in payment regulation.
Indian Fintechs Going Global
Skydo’s Canadian licence reflects a broader trend of Indian fintech companies expanding beyond domestic markets by securing local regulatory approvals in key international jurisdictions. The cross-border payments space in India has seen heightened activity, with several startups building infrastructure to serve the country’s growing export ecosystem.
India’s export sector, which the government aims to take to $2 trillion, has traditionally struggled with high costs, opaque pricing, and slow settlement times in cross-border payments. The RBI’s PA-CB framework, introduced in 2023, has provided regulatory clarity that allows compliant fintechs to scale with confidence. Skydo, along with other licensed players such as Razorpay, Cashfree Payments, Amazon Pay, BillDesk, and Adyen, are now operating within a structured regulatory environment.
For Skydo, the Canadian licence also creates a foundation for future expansion across North America, including the United States. The company has indicated plans to enter the US market as part of its next phase of growth. With licences in India (RBI PA-CB), GIFT City (PSP), and now Canada (RPAA), Skydo is building a multi-jurisdictional regulatory stack that allows it to offer end-to-end payment services across the India-North America corridor. This corridor is among the largest cross-border payment routes in the world, driven by trade, remittances, IT services, and the Indian diaspora.
Key Takeaways
- Skydo became the first Indian cross-border payments platform to secure an international payment licence overseas, granted under Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act.
- The licence is overseen by the Bank of Canada and enables two-way payment flows including local collections and payouts between India and Canada.
- Skydo was founded in 2022 by Srivatsan Sridhar and Movin Jain, and has raised approximately $20 million in total funding from Elevation Capital and Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital.
- The company holds regulatory approvals across three jurisdictions: RBI PA-CB authorisation, GIFT City PSP approval, and now the Canadian RPAA licence.
- India and Canada are targeting USD 50 billion in bilateral trade by 2030 and are actively negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
- The Retail Payment Activities Act received royal assent in June 2021, with the Bank of Canada beginning registration of payment service providers in November 2024.
