Zoho launching Zoho Pay, an in-chat payments app embedded inside Arattai
Targets consumer payments and SMB ecosystem, leveraging Zoho billing and POS
Holds payments-aggregator licence and tens of millions of Arattai installs
Gradual rollout planned; faces stiff competition from UPI wallets and incumbents
Zoho is preparing to enter India’s consumer payments market with Zoho Pay, a payments app that will also be embedded inside its homegrown chat platform Arattai, the company’s payments chief said.
The move marks a strategic expansion from Zoho’s existing business payments and POS offerings into a consumer-facing fintech play that will compete with established wallets and UPI apps such as Google Pay and PhonePe.
What Zoho Pay will Do
Zoho Payments Tech CEO Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran said Zoho Pay will let users send and receive money, make secure payments and complete transactions without leaving conversations on Arattai. The product is currently undergoing internal testing and will be rolled out in phases over the coming months, he told Moneycontrol.
Zoho positions Zoho Pay as the first step in building a broader financial-services ecosystem. The company plans to layer offerings such as invoicing (Zoho Billing), payroll payouts, marketplace settlements and eventually lending, broking, insurance and wealth-tech services on top of the payments rail.
“Our approach to fintech is incremental… we’re starting with payments and gradually expanding into other financial services,” Iswaran said.
Regulatory & Ecosystem Footing
Zoho’s fintech arm already operates business payments and point-of-sale devices and secured final approval for a payments aggregator licence in February last year, giving it an established regulatory foothold as it moves into consumer payments.
The firm has also discussed partnerships with industry bodies to strengthen payments infrastructure, executives said at industry events.
Arattai, Zoho’s privacy-focused chat app launched in 2021, will serve as the natural entry point for Zoho Pay. The messaging platform has seen a surge in downloads this year, reporting tens of millions of installs, and is positioned as a “Made in India” alternative that connects consumers and small businesses.
Embedding payments inside chat mirrors a successful model used by other superapps and could accelerate adoption among existing Arattai users.
Market Opportunity & Competition
Zoho enters a saturated but still-growing market dominated by UPI-native players and large tech platforms. Its advantage, the company argues, will be deep integration with Zoho’s business suite, a strong SMB focus and an existing ecosystem of merchants using Zoho’s billing and POS tools.
The challenge will be converting chat users into active payments customers amid fierce competition on offers, convenience and scale.
Zoho has not given a firm launch date. Key near-term indicators will include the pace of internal testing, regulatory clearances for consumer operations, merchant acceptance rollouts, and early retention metrics on Arattai users who try in-chat payments.
Observers will also watch whether Zoho leverages partnerships, pricing incentives or merchant integrations to gain traction against entrenched rivals.
