Zoho Rides The Fintech Wave, Launches Payment Gateway

Sridhar Vembu-led SaaS unicorn Zoho has forayed into the payments space with the roll out of Zoho Payments, 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.

According to the company, by integrating Zoho Payments with the company’s existing finance and operations applications, including Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice and Zoho Billing, businesses can streamline their payment processes and boost overall efficiency.

The B2B payments capabilities of Zoho Payments are powered by Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) of NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited (NBBL). Zoho obtained a payment aggregator licence from RBI in February. 

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

“Towards this vision, we had launched our ‘Connected Banking’ solution across our finance apps, integrating with leading banks. With the launch of Zoho Payments today, along with B2B payment capabilities, we are able to achieve our goal.”

“NBBL’s BBPS standardises invoice presentment and payments, providing multiple payment modes, instant payment confirmations, invoice financing, and a unified platform for invoice transmission and reconciliation. This marks a major advancement in the fintech domain. As a result, we can now offer a more holistic financial management solution for businesses,” Iswaran added.

This 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,

Meanwhile, Zoho has maintained the diversification of its offerings for quite some time now. 

The Chennai-based SaaS unicorn last year launched Zoho Practice, a free end-to-end practice management solution tailored for chartered accountants (CAs), to increase their productivity and operational efficiency. 

Earlier in the same year, it launched a privacy-centred browser ‘Ulaa’ to secure personal data with pre-built capabilities to universally block tracking and website surveillance. 

Founded in 1996 by Padma Shri awardee Sridhar Vembu, Tony Thomas, Zoho was initially known as AdventNet INC. It has offices in the US, Singapore, the UAE, and Japan. 

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.

It earns its revenue by selling its software and charging subscription fees to its customers across six continents.

On the financial front, the company’s sales crossed the $1 Bn mark in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. 

The bootstrapped unicorn reported an operating revenue of INR 8,703.6 Cr ($1 Bn) in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), a jump of 30% from INR 6,710.7 Cr in FY22. North America continued to be the biggest contributor to Zoho’s revenue. 

However, the startup’s total expenditure also zoomed at INR 5,392.7 Cr during the year under review, an increase of 51% from INR 3,571.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

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