The collaboration between India-based Pine Labs and Sri Lanka-based WEBXPAY is described by the two companies as the first Payment Aggregator-to-Payment Aggregator (PA-on-PA) partnership of its kind in Sri Lanka under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) PA-CB framework. The service is now live for merchants in Sri Lanka, and Pine Labs plans to extend the model to Southeast Asia.
Addressing checkout friction for Indian travellers
India is Sri Lanka’s primary source market for tourism. More than 530.000 Indian travellers visited the country in 2025, and the companies state that this momentum has continued into 2026. Despite these volumes, Indian visitors have not consistently been able to pay with the methods they use at home, such as UPI, net banking, and domestic card options.
According to the companies, the familiarity Indian consumers have with UPI, built through billions of domestic transactions, supports transaction completion. In addition, when those options are missing at checkout, customers may hesitate, transactions may fail, and merchants may lose revenue.
The RBI-authorised PA-CB structure allows licensed Indian payment aggregators to partner directly with international aggregators, so that Indian payment methods can be accepted abroad within a regulated framework.
Under the arrangement, WEBXPAY’s merchant network, which spans hospitality, travel, retail and online commerce, can accept UPI, UPI AutoPay, cards from major Indian issuers, net banking across more than 100 banks, EMI conversions, and Credit on UPI. Settlement takes place on a T+1 basis, and the payment options are embedded natively within merchants’ existing integrations, so businesses do not need to change their payment infrastructure. The service has been available at scale since launch.
Expansion plans and market implications
Tanya Naik, Sr. EVP & Head of Online Business, Pine Labs, said Indian consumers carry expectations shaped by the domestic payment stack when they travel. The official described making that experience portable as the next stage of cross-border commerce. Sri Lanka is the company’s first activation under the PA-CB framework, and Pine Labs intends to replicate the model across Southeast Asia and in other markets where Indian travellers and consumers represent significant commercial demand.
For WEBXPAY, the partnership is intended to remove a point of friction in online checkout and help Sri Lankan businesses convert Indian demand into revenue. Thilak Piyadigama, Executive Chairman of WEBXPAY, noted that India is one of Sri Lanka’s key economic partners. The official said the company selected Pine Labs for its Indian payment infrastructure, the range of payment options it supports, and its ability to operate a regulated cross-border model at scale.
The partnership shows how the PA-CB framework can extend India’s domestic payment methods to overseas merchants through partnerships between licensed aggregators, with acceptance delivered through merchants’ existing integrations. Both companies indicated that the model could support similar collaborations in other international markets.
