In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Aditya Mhatre, Chief Product & Technology Officer of Beacon, discusses his journey in the fintech space and the creation of a financial platform tailored for global Canadians. Drawing from his experience at Reliance Jio, Paytm, and PayPay, Aditya highlights Beacon’s solutions for managing cross-border finances, from international money transfers to bill payments. He also shares insights into the company’s expansion plans and offers advice for small and medium-sized fintech businesses.
Aditya has deep expertise in building mobile-first products since 2010. He has been an early employee and part of three major start-ups in the Telecom and Payments space. Aditya was employee #10 at Reliance Jio, now India’s largest LTE operator, with Product management responsibility for Mobile, Tablet and Set-top boxes. Aditya led the launch of Paytm in Canada in 2017, getting hands-on experience and exposure to the nuances of Canadian payment and banking infrastructure. In 2018, Aditya moved to Tokyo, Japan, where he launched Paytm in Japan, branded as PayPay, in collaboration with Softbank and Yahoo Japan.
As employee number #1 and Head of Product at PayPay, Aditya kickstarted and scaled the product from Zero users to ~50 million, processing ~65% of Mobile Payment volume in Japan in 3 years. PayPay was voted App of the Year by Google and Apple in 2019 and 2020. He grew the product, design and engineering team from 1 to ~350 in three years. In his spare time, Aditya hosts Indicast, a podcast catering to the global Indian audience. Academically, Aditya completed his B.Com, Master in Information System from Carnegie Mellon University, and MBA from Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
How do you see the challenges and opportunities for Canadians with global ties in managing their financial lives, and how does Beacon address these?
For Canadians with ties to other countries, especially newcomers, managing finances across borders can be a real challenge. Sending money to family, paying bills back home, or moving funds between countries often means dealing with delays, high fees, and outdated systems that weren’t built for how people live today.
At the same time, these are some of the most financially active and digitally connected Canadians. They’re used to fast, simple payment tools like UPI in India and expect the same kind of experience abroad. The problem is, most financial services in Canada still treat cross-border needs as an afterthought.
That’s exactly what Beacon is here to change. With Beacon, users in Canada can send money to UPI IDs in India instantly, with full transparency and no hidden fees. Most people today are forced to manage separate apps for money transfers, bill payments, and managing their money for day-to-day life. Beacon brings it all together in one place, so you can stop jumping between apps and start doing everything in one.
We’re not just making transfers easier, we’re helping people feel more connected to their responsibilities back home while getting settled in Canada. Our goal is to remove the stress from cross-border money and make it feel as seamless as everything else in their life.
What makes Beacon’s UPI transfer service unique compared to other money transfer options available to Canadians sending money to India?
What makes Beacon’s UPI transfer service stand out is how fast, simple, and transparent it is, all designed specifically for Canadians sending money to India. Unlike traditional remittance services that rely on account numbers, IFSC codes, and long wait times, Beacon lets users send money directly to a UPI ID in India, with delivery in seconds.
We charge no service fees and offer some of the best CAD-to-INR FX rates in the market. With Beacon UPI, transfers are delivered in seconds, and that speed doesn’t come at a premium. There are no extra charges for fast delivery. It’s incredibly convenient: what used to take days — waiting for confirmations, navigating paperwork, or syncing bank accounts — now gets done in just a few taps, any time of day. Beacon gives users the confidence and freedom to move money when they need to, without delays or surprises.
While most services are still built around large, one-time remittances, Beacon supports how people actually send money today: smaller, more frequent transfers to support family, send a gift, take care of everyday expenses, etc.
This makes Beacon a more flexible, affordable, and real-time solution for anyone managing responsibilities across borders. It’s not just a remittance tool; it’s a modern way to stay connected to life back home, without the hassle.
Can you share the inspiration behind building Beacon specifically for newcomers and global Canadians?
The idea for Beacon started with conversations between me and Stu, my co-founder. We’d both moved across countries: India, Canada, Hong Kong, the U.S, Belgium and kept running into the same issue: managing finances across borders was way harder than it should be. Sending money to family, paying bills back home, or even getting set up in a new country involved long delays, confusing requirements, and high fees. It felt like none of the systems were built for people who live global lives.
That shared experience became the foundation for Beacon. We knew there were millions of people in Canada: newcomers, students, global professionals, and so many more types of people who were dealing with the same friction every day. So we decided to build a financial platform that actually helps to meet their needs.
With Beacon, our goal is to make managing global lives simpler, whether you’re supporting your parents back home from helping with travel costs to covering utility bills, getting your salary directly deposited into your Beacon Money Account, or making purchases in Canada and globally with your Beacon visa card. We’re building for people who live between places, because we’ve lived it too.
What are your plans for expanding Beacon’s services to other countries or markets in the near future?
From the beginning, our vision for Beacon has been to build one simple platform that works across countries, designed to support people from all over the world, not just those from India. India is the first country where users can experience the full power of Beacon: sending money to UPI IDs, paying bills back home, and managing everyday finances, all without needing a separate Canadian and Indian bank account.
Our next step is expanding this experience to more communities. That’s why we’re excited to share that Philippines and Mexico Bill Pay will be launching soon, with more countries to follow. These are just the first milestones as we work to bring Beacon’s fast, transparent, and stress-free experience to everyone who wants to stay connected to home while building a life in Canada.
What advice would you give to small and medium-sized businesses looking to innovate in the fintech space, based on your experience scaling PayPay and launching Beacon?
One of the biggest things I’ve learned, both at PayPay in Japan and now with Beacon, is that real innovation in fintech doesn’t come from trying to build everything at once. It comes from deeply understanding one specific user problem and executing against it with speed, clarity, and focus.
At PayPay, we scaled from zero to over 50 million users in under three years by building a mobile-first product that solved a simple need: easy, fast payments in a cash-heavy market. That experience taught me the power of clarity.
With Beacon, we brought that same mindset to a very different market, newcomers to Canada. Stu and I both lived and worked across multiple countries, and we’d seen how complicated it is to manage money across borders. Our insight was that no one was building financial tools specifically for immigrants. So we did.
For any small or mid-sized fintech team, my advice is: start narrow, stay fast, and stay close to your users. Solve one painful problem really well, and let that be the foundation for everything else.
