Zoho, the Chennai-based software giant, is making its first direct foray into India’s consumer payments space with the upcoming launch of Zoho Pay — a standalone UPI-enabled app that will also be tightly integrated into Zoho’s homegrown chat platform, Arattai. The new move positions Zoho in direct competition with digital payment leaders like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm, leveraging its existing reputation for robust SaaS offerings and privacy-first messaging.
Seamless Payments Inside Chat: Arattai Integration
What makes Zoho Pay’s rollout distinctive is its core focus on user experience. Instead of making payments a separate routine, Zoho embeds transaction capabilities right into the chat interface of Arattai — meaning users can send or receive money, split bills, and complete peer-to-peer transactions without ever leaving their conversation window. This integration aims to transform Arattai into a full-fledged super app, following global trends set by platforms like WeChat and WhatsApp Pay, but winning on its Made-in-India credentials and privacy. Arattai itself has grown rapidly since its early 2021 launch, now supporting group chats, calls, file sharing, and soon, direct payments.
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Zoho Pay’s Core Features and Strategy
According to Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, CEO of Zoho Payments Tech, Zoho Pay is designed to deliver secure, smooth, and tightly integrated experiences for sending and receiving money, bill payments, and merchant transactions. The app is currently in final testing and regulatory approval, and is expected to roll out nationally in phased launches. By making payment flows “as easy as sending a message,” Zoho hopes to attract both individual consumers and small businesses who use Arattai for daily conversation and commerce.
The new product is part of a deliberate, “incremental yet holistic” expansion in financial services. Zoho’s roadmap includes Zoho Billing (for invoicing and subscription management), Zoho Payroll, POS devices, and future fintech solutions in lending, broking, insurance, and wealth management. Zoho’s ecosystem already counts more than 100 million users across its various software products, giving it a ready user base to cross-promote consumer payments at scale.
Privacy, Security, and Long-Term Vision
Zoho’s pitch focuses not just on convenience, but also on privacy and security. The company aims to compete on high quality infrastructure, a robust approach to privacy, and the safety of user transactions — reflecting its well-established corporate ethos. While the fintech field is crowded, Zoho backs organic growth and maintains profitability as core principles, planning to steadily build out its financial stack for consumers and MSMEs over time.
As Zoho Pay goes live, its introduction could reshape India’s digital payments marketplace, offering a unified experience for conversation and commerce within a single Indian platform. With the integration of payments into daily chat, Zoho seeks to capture a unique intersection of technology, ease, and trust in India’s booming UPI ecosystem.
