Last week PhonePe, one of India's largest digital payment platforms, received in principle approval from the UAE central bank for two payment licences. It is a real milestone. It is also not the finish line: final clearance is still needed before it can trade, and after that come the banking partners, the local integrations and the customers.
That gap between permission and revenue is where many international expansions quietly lose a year. We see it most often with companies that treat forming the entity as the project, rather than the first step of it.
The paperwork is the easy part
Incorporating a company in the UK, the Netherlands, Estonia or Delaware is, for most businesses, a matter of weeks. The forms are standard, the registries are efficient, and a good provider can turn it round quickly.
What takes longer is everything the registry does not ask about: a working bank account, tax registrations, beneficial ownership filings, a local address that banks accept, contracts that reflect local law, and someone who is accountable for the new entity day to day. When these are handled one at a time, after incorporation, each one waits for the last.
The choice of jurisdiction matters too. The right home for a new entity depends on where the customers are, how the group is structured, and what banks and partners will expect to see. Getting that choice right at the start avoids a restructuring later.
Where momentum goes
In our experience, three things slow a new market entry once the entity exists.
Banking. Account opening is often one of the longest steps. Banks want to understand the group structure, the source of funds and the expected activity, and a new entity with no history gives them little to go on.
Ownership. Head office assumes the local team will drive it. The local team, often one or two people, assumes head office will. Decisions stall in between.
Pipeline. The first customers were expected to arrive once the company was in place. They rarely do. Buyers in a new market need introductions, references and a reason to take a meeting with an unfamiliar name.
What a working market entry looks like
The businesses that reach revenue fastest treat the entity, the operation and the pipeline as one plan.
- Structure first. Decide how the new company sits in the group before registering anything: who owns it, how it will be funded, and how it reports.
- Banking in parallel. Prepare the documents a bank will ask for while incorporation is under way, not after.
- One accountable owner. Name a person with authority over the new market, whether a local hire, someone seconded from head office, or an interim leader for the first months.
- Pipeline before launch. Start mapping target customers and partners, and opening conversations, while the paperwork is still moving.
- A commercial first milestone. Define being open for business as a first signed customer, not a certificate of incorporation.
Building demand while the paperwork moves
The pipeline is the piece most often left until last, and the one that takes longest to build. Relationships in a new market compound slowly. Every month spent waiting for the entity to be ready is a month those relationships are not growing.
This is why we connect company formation with new business development. A company registered in Amsterdam or Tallinn is useful only when someone is in front of the buyers who matter there, with the credibility to be heard.
It also changes the conversation with banks. A new entity that can show real prospects, a named local leader and a clear plan is a far easier account to open than an empty shell.
How Grant & Graham helps
Grant & Graham has helped companies set up and grow across borders since 2009, with offices in London, Amsterdam, Tallinn and San Diego. Our company formation work covers incorporation, banking introductions, tax registration, filings and holding structures, so clients get the full operational picture rather than a registration certificate.
Alongside it, our business development and interim management teams can put an experienced operator into the market and start building the pipeline from the first week. One team, one plan, from the first form to the first contract.
If a new market is on your plan for next year, the best time to start the conversation is before the paperwork does.
Grant & Graham helps companies enter new markets, from company formation to building the pipeline. Book a call with Andrew Collins.
Source: Channel IAM, 22 September 2026. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice.
