Zoho ventures into fintech with launch of payment gateway

Chennai-based IT firm Zoho announced on Thursday its entry into the payments space with the launch of Zoho Payments, a unified payment solution designed to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) transactions.

The company's new offering allows businesses to receive payments through various methods, including UPI, net banking, and cards.

Zoho made this announcement at the Global Fintech Fest organised by the Payments Council of India (PCI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and Fintech Convergence Council (FCC) in Mumbai.

The firm, led by Sridhar Vembu, also introduced B2B payment capabilities that streamline invoice presentment and payments. These capabilities are powered by the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) of NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited (NBBL). Zoho obtained a payment aggregator license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February.

Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, Global Head of Finance and Operations BU at Zoho, said in a statement, "At Zoho, we strongly believe that business finance, banking, and payments should work together.

Towards this vision, we launched our 'Connected Banking' solution across our finance apps, integrating with leading banks. With the launch of Zoho Payments today and B2B payment capabilities, we can achieve our goal."

In addition to multiple payment modes, instant payment confirmations, invoice financing, and a unified platform for invoice transmission and reconciliation, NBBL's BBPS offers various facilities, Iswaran added. Zoho's close integrations with its business applications in the finance domain, such as Zoho Books, Zoho Billing, and Zoho Invoice, will now allow the software major to offer an end-to-end financial management solution to clients.

Zoho Payments is PCI-DSS level 1 compliant and enables businesses to securely accept payments through UPI, 35 plus net banking options, and cards. It also provides fraud management, and detailed insights on transactions, refunds, payment failures, and other dispute management tools.

This announcement comes almost six months after Zoho launched its new business division, Zakya, to offer POS solutions to its retail business in February. Zakya offers improved inventory management, omnichannel sales, and customer experience, and can be implemented in under an hour for businesses with thousands of items in their inventory.

Zoho has been diversifying its offerings for some time now. In 2023, the company launched Zoho Practice, a free end-to-end practice management solution tailored for chartered accountants (CAs) to increase their productivity and operational efficiency.

In May 2023, it also launched a privacy-centered browser, 'Ulaa,' to secure personal data with pre-built capabilities to universally block tracking and website surveillance.

The company offers more than 50 integrated online applications that support multiple business operations spanning sales and marketing, finance, email and collaboration, app creation, and analytics, among others.