---
title: Payments Company Payfuture Closes Shopify's India Gap Without Ever Taking Venture Capital
description: Payfuture's new Shopify app lets merchants outside India accept UPI and NetBanking without a local entity, and it never raised venture capital.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-07-07T13:36:06.694Z
updated: 2026-07-07T13:36:06.707Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/payfuture-shopify-india-upi-netbanking
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/payfuture-shopify-featured.webp
categories: FinTech, Business
content_type: Spotlight
region: London
publication: Sovereign Magazine
about:
  - type: Organization
    name: Payfuture
    description: Payfuture is a London-based payments company founded in 2019 by Manpreet Haer and Zaki Farooq. It helps merchants accept local payment methods in emerging markets across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Bootstrapped and profitable from its first year, it holds an agent electronic money licence from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and a full electronic money licence from Malta's Financial Services Authority.
    url: https://www.payfuture.net/
    foundingDate: 2019-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
    industry: Payments
---

Payfuture has added Indian UPI and NetBanking payments to Shopify stores [without ever raising a venture round](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/david-vs-goliath-in-payments-yetipay-bets-on-lean-growth-to-conquer-markets).

The London-based payments company's new Shopify app lets merchants based outside India accept the country's two most common payment methods without registering a local entity. It plugs a gap [Shopify](https://www.payfuture.net/) has left unfilled since launching in India: Shopify Payments, the platform's own gateway, does not work there, so foreign sellers have had to bolt on a separate provider or skip the market.

## Why Shopify Payments Doesn't Work in India

India's online retail sector is on course to reach $150 billion to $170 billion by 2027, and its shoppers favour [local payment rails](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/are-european-merchant-payments-splitting-into-competing-layers) over international cards. UPI, the country's real-time payments network, processed a record 23.2 billion transactions in May 2026, according to the National Payments Corporation of India. The International Monetary Fund [named it the world's largest retail fast-payment system](https://www.ibef.org/industry/ecommerce) by volume last year. NetBanking, which lets buyers pay directly from a bank account, is the other rail most Indian shoppers expect at checkout.

Without a way to accept either, a foreign merchant selling into India is asking customers to pay by card in a market where cards are a secondary option. Payfuture's app closes that specific hole: install it, and a Shopify store based anywhere can take UPI and NetBanking payments without incorporating in India first.

## How Payfuture Funded Its Growth Without Venture Capital

dLocal, Payfuture's closest comparison in emerging-markets payments, went public on Nasdaq in 2021 at a valuation near $9.5 billion. Rapyd has raised more than $2 billion and was valued at $15 billion at its peak. Nium has taken in over $300 million from backers including Visa and Temasek, and Thunes has raised more than $360 million. Payfuture has taken none of that.

Founders Manpreet Haer and Zaki Farooq [built the company profitably from its first year](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/how-pave-bank-reached-profitability-in-seven-months-and-raised-39-million), [according to Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidprosser/2022/09/13/exploiting-the-potential-of-emerging-markets-with-payfuture/), and funded its growth through licences rather than investors: an agent electronic money licence from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority in 2023, when the company had processed over $2 billion across more than 40 countries, and a full electronic money licence from Malta's regulator in 2025, which lets it issue its own IBANs and settle directly over SEPA and SWIFT.

## Who Founded Payfuture

Haer spent more than 15 years in payments before starting Payfuture, at companies that were later folded into Paysafe and Nuvei. Farooq had been in technology since 1992 and ran the Computrad group, with offices in London, Washington DC and Dubai, for 22 years.

The pair founded Payfuture in 2019 to solve a specific mismatch: merchants based in the UK, the US and Europe wanted to sell into fast-growing markets across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, but the payment methods those buyers actually used, mobile wallets, local bank transfers, region-specific cards, were not something a single international gateway handled well. "These countries are very complex," Haer [told The Fintech Times](https://thefintechtimes.com/new-faces-big-ambitions-payfuture-next-chapter-in-emerging-markets/). "But the whole point of Payfuture is to make that complexity easy for the merchants."

## What's Next for Payfuture in Emerging Markets

Payfuture says its next targets are the Gulf, wider Latin America and Southeast Asia, where the same gap between card-based checkout and the payment methods people actually use still holds. The India work is the template it plans to repeat: license itself to settle the money, then plug into whatever platform the merchant already uses.

## FAQ

**Q: Why doesn't Shopify support UPI and NetBanking payments in India directly?**
Shopify Payments, the platform's built-in payment gateway, is not available in India. Merchants selling into the country from abroad have had to add a separate payment provider, such as Payfuture's app, to accept local methods like UPI and NetBanking without registering an Indian legal entity.

**Q: How does UPI payment work?**
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) lets an Indian bank customer pay directly from their bank account using a mobile app, without sharing card details. It processes over 23 billion transactions a month, more than any other real-time payment system in the world.

**Q: What are local payment methods and why do they matter for ecommerce?**
Local payment methods are the ways people in a specific country actually prefer to pay, such as UPI and NetBanking in India, rather than international cards. Merchants that don't support them lose sales at checkout, since many shoppers won't complete a purchase using a card if their preferred local method isn't offered.

**Q: Has Payfuture raised venture capital?**
No. Unlike competitors such as dLocal, Rapyd, Nium and Thunes, which have collectively raised billions of dollars in venture funding, Payfuture has been profitable since its first year and has funded its expansion through regulatory licences rather than outside investment.

**About Payfuture**

Payfuture is a London-based payments company founded in 2019 by Manpreet Haer and Zaki Farooq. It helps merchants accept local payment methods in emerging markets across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Bootstrapped and profitable from its first year, it holds an agent electronic money licence from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and a full electronic money licence from Malta's Financial Services Authority.

[Website](https://www.payfuture.net/)