As the remittances that the Indian diaspora sends home reach a record high of US$135.46 billion, the shimmering surface of India’s fintech triumphalism exposes a complex terrain of old habits, new technologies, and cross-border contradictions running beneath it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in its economic entanglement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). As the Modi government champions the internationalisation of UPI and boasts of real-time remittance pipelines with countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, the shadow economy continues to hum beneath. Informal financial channels like hawala systems, unregistered cryptocurrency transfers, and couriered cash still dominate large swathes of the India-Gulf remittance corridors. What is at stake is more than lost revenue or data opacity. Without a coherent, cross-border financial architecture that includes regulatory convergence, shared digital infrastructure, and robust anti-money laundering protocols, India risks building fintech castles on sand. A proportional fortification of digital governance must match the digitisation of finance.
Fintech Corridors and Informal Flows: Reimagining Gulf-India Financial Security
