Chennai-based tech major Zoho has officially stepped into India’s fast-growing digital payments market with the launch of Zoho Pay, a Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based app aimed at challenging established players such as Google Pay and PhonePe. The move marks the company’s ambitious expansion beyond enterprise software into the consumer fintech space, leveraging its robust base of over 100 million users worldwide.
Seamless Payments via Chat and App
Zoho Pay will operate both as a standalone payments app and as an integrated feature within Arattai, Zoho’s in-house messaging platform launched in 2021. This integration allows users to send and receive money directly within chat conversations, similar to WhatsApp’s payment feature.
“Zoho Pay has been built to provide a smooth, secure, and unified payment experience across platforms,” said Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, CEO of Zoho Payments Tech, in a statement to Moneycontrol.
Currently in its internal testing phase, the app is expected to be rolled out in stages across India over the coming months. Zoho had earlier secured its Payment Aggregator License from the Reserve Bank of India in February 2024, paving the way for this consumer-focused payments launch.
Feature-Rich Platform with Transparent Pricing
Zoho Pay supports UPI, debit and credit cards, net banking, and Banking Connect, catering to both individual and business users. It also enables recurring UPI payments, targeting subscription-based services and utility billers.
The platform adopts a transparent pricing model, UPI transactions are charged 0.5%, card and net banking payments 2%, and bank transfers 1% or ₹10, whichever is lower. Corporate credit card transactions attract a 2.75% platform fee.
In addition, Zoho Pay offers advanced business tools such as dispute management, detailed reporting dashboards, faster settlements, and fraud prevention systems. The platform meets PCI DSS Level 1 compliance and ISO 27001:2022 certification standards, ensuring top-tier data security. All information is protected with TLS 1.2/1.3 encryption during transfer and AES-256 encryption at rest.
A Changing UPI Landscape
Zoho’s entry arrives at a time when India’s UPI market is undergoing a gradual transformation. While PhonePe continues to lead with about 45.6% market share and Google Pay follows at 34.8%, their combined dominance has slipped from 85% to 80% in the past year. New entrants like Sachin Bansal’s Navi and Flipkart-backed super.money have been gaining traction through innovative campaigns and attractive user rewards.
The timing couldn’t be better. India processed a record 19.63 billion UPI transactions worth ₹24.9 lakh crore in September 2025, with daily volumes hitting ₹94,000 crore in October amid festive spending. According to market estimates, India’s digital payments industry, valued at $2.07 billion in 2025, is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.89%, reaching $3.62 billion by 2030.
With Zoho Pay, the company is positioning itself as a homegrown alternative focused on data privacy, reliability, and ecosystem integration, a combination that could reshape how India pays in the years ahead.