By PrimeHeadlines Tech Desk
Updated: 23 October 2025
In a bold move into India’s fintech arena, Zoho Corporation is preparing to launch its standalone payments app, Zoho Pay, which will also be embedded within its home-grown chat platform Arattai.
🚀 What is Zoho Pay & Why It Matters
Zoho Pay aims to let users send and receive money, make secure payments and complete transactions without leaving conversations inside Arattai. The fintech foray marks Zoho’s shift from its business-software legacy into consumer-facing financial services—a space dominated by UPI-native apps like Google Pay and PhonePe.
Zoho already holds a payments aggregator licence, positioning it to build a broader fintech stack: billing, marketplace settlements, payroll, lending, insurance and wealth-tech are all on the road map.
📲 Strategy & Competitive Edge
- Embedded payments inside chat: Arattai boasts tens of millions of installs, making it a natural entry point.
- SMB (small & medium business) focus: Zoho’s existing billing and POS tools are used by merchants. They could offer built-in financial services, making Zoho Pay appealing for businesses and consumers alike.
- “Made in India” brand: Arattai is positioned as a home-grown alternative to global chat and payments platforms.
- Phased rollout planned: The app is in internal testing, with no firm public launch date yet.
📉 Challenges Ahead
- Highly saturated payments market: With deep competition, Zoho must distinguish Zoho Pay on convenience, incentives or unique features.
- Conversion of chat users to payment users: Engagement inside the chat app must translate into active payments usage.
- Merchant acceptance & retention: Success will depend on how many merchants adopt and how users stick around after first use.
- Regulatory and infrastructure hurdles: The roadmap includes several verticals (lending, insurance) which demand compliance and scale.
🧭 Why This Could Be a Big Deal
Zoho moving into fintech is meaningful for several reasons:
- Offers one-stop ecosystem: chat + payments + business tools
- Brings SMBs and consumers under one umbrella, which is rare among Indian players
- Signals evolving fintech competition: not just wallets → now full-stack financial services by software firms
✅ What to Watch
Key indicators to follow:
- Arattai user growth and active usage
- Zoho Pay’s public launch and initial features
- Merchant onboarding statistics
- Introduction of advanced features: lending, insurance, wealth tech
- How Zoho distinguishes itself from giants like Google, PhonePe, Paytm
Zoho Pay embedded in Arattai could reshape fintech by bridging chat, business operations and payments. If executed well, this could mark a shift from standalone wallets to integrated ecosystems—especially for India’s small businesses and digital-first users.
