Amsterdam-listed payments giant Adyen is doubling down on its India strategy, planning further workforce expansion and operational scale-ups to capture surging demand in the country’s digital payments ecosystem.
According to Asia-Pacific President Gary Yang, Adyen views India as a critical long-term growth market, driven by two key trends: multinational corporations expanding into India and domestic Indian enterprises scaling their operations overseas.
Overcoming Regulatory Hurdles Where Rivals Stumbled
While global fintech heavywaters like Stripe and PayPal previously scaled back or exited parts of the domestic Indian market due to strict regulatory complexities, Adyen has steadily carved out a foothold. Since securing its payment aggregator and cross-border licenses in 2024, Adyen’s local headcount has surged tenfold, reaching 120 employees in the first half of 2026. Financial performance reflects this momentum: the company’s pre-tax income from India more than doubled to 3.18 million euros ($3.5 million) in 2025, up from 1.45 million euros the previous year.
Tailoring Tech for the Local Landscape
To succeed in India’s highly regulated environment, Adyen has adapted its platform to strictly meet data localization mandates while embedding essential local payment rails.
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UPI Integration: Acknowledging the dominance of the Unified Payments Interface, Yang emphasized, “There is no succeeding in India without UPI.” Adyen supports UPI alongside recurring payment mandates.
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Global & Local Client Base: The firm services major international tech giants like Uber, Microsoft, and Adobe, while also assisting Indian brands—such as travel platform Oyo—with their international expansion.
Looking Ahead: AI-Powered “Agentic Commerce”
Looking forward, Adyen is actively positioning its infrastructure for the rise of AI-driven “agentic commerce,” where autonomous software agents search, select, and complete transactions on behalf of users. This strategic pivot aligns with ongoing developments by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is reportedly preparing a framework to allow AI agents to execute minor digital payments seamlessly without requiring manual authorization for every individual transaction.
