A. SREENIVASA REDDY (ABU DHABI)

Juspay, a Bengaluru-based payments technology company,  has formally commenced operations in the Middle East, establishing its regional headquarters at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) as a base for its GCC expansion, one of the officials of the company said at a media interaction. 

The move marks a key milestone in the company’s global expansion strategy and reflects its focus on serving enterprise merchants, banks and financial institutions across the region.

Founded in 2012, the company is known for providing full-stack payment orchestration and real-time payments infrastructure for enterprises and banks. The company processes more than 300 million daily transactions globally, exceeding an annualised total payment volume of $1 trillion with 99.999% reliability. It serves over 500 enterprise merchants and banks worldwide and operates with a global team of more than 1,500 payment specialists.

Speaking at a media interaction, Nakul Kothari, Head of Middle East and APAC at Juspay, said the company’s journey began more than a decade ago in response to a regulatory shift in India that mandated two-factor authentication for card payments.

“We began operations around 13 years ago with a clear focus on solving a critical problem in digital payments,” Kothari said. “While the regulation was introduced for security reasons, the user experience was often inconsistent and fragmented, leading to failed payments, abandoned checkouts and slower digital adoption.”

He said the company responded by building a lightweight native software development kit (SDK) that strengthened security without introducing friction into the payment process.

“That early work shaped what Juspay stands for today — deep engineering capability, reliability at scale and a consumer-first design philosophy,” he said.

Kothari noted that Juspay later became one of the early contributors to India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the national real-time payments system that transformed digital payments in the country.

“Supporting UPI at scale taught us invaluable lessons about real-time payments, resiliency, and operating at a national level,” he said.

As enterprise customers expanded, their needs evolved beyond basic checkout capabilities.

“Payments were no longer just about checkout; they became about routing, reliability, compliance, fraud management, analytics, and scale,” Kothari said. “Over time, we built a full-stack payment platform that supports the entire lifecycle of digital payments.”

Juspay today operates as a modular payment infrastructure platform working closely with merchants and banks as a technology service provider. Its offerings include payment orchestration, authentication, tokenisation, fraud management, reconciliation, and real-time payments infrastructure for banks.

According to Kothari, 2025 marked a defining year for the company.

“We started the year with around 1,500 employees and onboarded several large global clients across industries,” he said. “Financially, we closed the year at approximately $62 million in revenue, representing about 61% year-on-year growth.”

The company also expanded its global footprint with offices in Singapore, San Francisco, Dublin, and São Paulo.

Looking ahead, Kothari said 2026 is focused on scaling globally while building regional depth. “We are taking learnings from markets such as India and Brazil, where real-time payment systems like UPI and Pix have significantly improved digital transactions, and applying those insights globally,” he said.

Referring to the Middle East launch, Kothari said the region holds strong strategic importance.

“It gives us immense pleasure to officially launch the UAE chapter for Juspay,” he said. “Today, we are delighted to formally announce Juspay’s official presence in the UAE, with DIFC as our base and launchpad for the GCC region.”

He said sectors such as airlines, hospitality, e-commerce, and financial services — which are central to the UAE and Middle East economy — are experiencing growing payment complexity driven by multiple currencies, cross-border flows, evolving regulations and diverse local payment methods.

“All of this requires secure, compliant, reliable, and scalable payment systems, which is exactly where Juspay comes in,” Kothari said.

From a merchant perspective, he explained, the company provides a unified infrastructure that sits on the merchant side, enabling enterprises to connect to multiple payment acquirers, intelligently route transactions, optimise conversion rates and build seamless checkout experiences.

“We ensure reliability so that enterprise payment systems do not go down. We also streamline post-transaction processes such as refunds, reconciliation, analytics and support,” he said. “In essence, Juspay helps businesses scale their payments efficiently as they expand into multiple markets.”

Kothari also acknowledged the role of DIFC in supporting the company’s regional expansion, citing its regulatory environment, infrastructure and access to talent.