From SWIFT to swift: Why Indian exporters are trading legacy banks for high-speed fintech rails

To address the issue, Azul Arc began to explore alternatives, and finally settled on a cross-border payments aggregator (PA-CB) called Skydo. The change was immediate and very visible. “Now, the process takes less than a day, unlike with banks where we waited for a day or two. In those two days, the dollar rate would often fluctuate,” explains Nikita Saldanha, head of accounting and accounts receivable, Azul Arc.

With Skydo, the company is sure it will get the latest forex-conversion rate. Speed—or rather, the lack of it—is another problem with banks, says Lionel Philip, a Mumbai-based chartered accountant, who co-founded Purple Cliq Ventures in 2021. The company, which sells luxury fragrances under the brand Israel Philip, earns more than 55% of its revenue from exports.

“My major issue with traditional banks was the time factor: three or four business days. With public holidays, it typically became four or five days per consignment in addition to a processing fee,” he explains. After tying up with a PA-CB, Purple Cliq’s remittances were coming in within 24 hours, and there was transparency on processing charges.

For decades, Indian exporters have depended on large banks, which dominate India’s cross-border payments industry. As authorized dealers, Category I scheduled banks are permitted by the RBI to handle all types and sizes of foreign transactions, in compliance with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

But delays, fluctuating rates and an opaque process that left them groping in the dark impacted businesses negatively. In an effort to address the issue, on 9 April, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular to banks with guidelines to facilitate faster cross-border inward payments and ensure timely “credit to the beneficiary’s account”.

More pointedly, flagging the lack of transparency, the central bank also instructed banks to provide a digital interface to their customers to facilitate and monitor forex transactions. The RBI action could have come sooner, but exporters are nevertheless pleased with the regulatory push.

The foreign-exchange remittances pie has been growing since 2024-25, when India’s inward remittances alone set a new record by soaring past the $135 billion mark (14% growth), according to RBI data. These are typically payments made by NRIs, and overseas customers of Indian freelancers’ projects.

The pie is expected to grow bigger as exports rise. In 2025-26, non-petroleum exports—engineering goods, electronics, gems and jewellery, drugs etc—grew 3.6% year on year to $388 billion, according to the commerce and industry ministry. Total exports (both goods and services) for the same period rose to $860 billion, growing 4.2% year-on-year (y-o-y).

The creation of PAs-CB The RBI circular is the latest in a series of moves by the regulator over the past three years to enhance competition in the cross-border payments business. First, the central bank recognized non-banking technology startups as ‘PA-CB’ or ‘payment aggregators in cross border payments’ from 1 November 2023 onwards.

“PAs-CB are entities that facilitate cross-border payment transactions for import and export of permissible goods and services in online mode,” the RBI stated in a circular then. Tech-led non-bank ventures had to comply with the RBI’s PA-CB regulations to be recognized, and get a licence to facilitate outward remittances (PA-CB-O), inward remittances (PA-CB-I), or both (PA-CB-I&O).