Zoho Pay launches to challenge Google Pay and PhonePe in India

Zoho Pay expands inside India's SaaS ecosystem

Zoho Pay is coming. Zoho, the Chennai-based SaaS giant, is launching Zoho Pay, a consumer payments app designed to take on Google Pay and PhonePe. The rollout will be phased over the next few months after internal testing. It will work as a standalone app and inside Arattai, Zoho’s chat platform that launched in 2021 to address privacy concerns around foreign messaging apps.

The plan, as shared by Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, CEO of Zoho Payments Tech, is clear: build a broad, self-sustaining financial services ecosystem. This isn’t just about payments; it’s about expanding into lending, broking, insurance, and wealthtech. And there’s more on the horizon—Zoho Billing, the invoicing and subscription management tool, is expected to join the lineup, weaving a connected “financial stack” for both businesses and consumers. The Arattai integration is central, enabling smooth transactions within the chat experience and signaling Zoho’s ambition to serve individuals along with enterprise clients.

But the specifics—what features, how the user experience will feel, and when exactly certain capabilities appear—are still to be finalized. What’s announced is a strategic move: embed payments where people already work and chat, then layer in more financial services to create a seamless loop of money and business operations.

Building a connected financial stack for India

Look, this isn’t just a new app. It’s a philosophy. Zoho wants a connected financial stack—an ecosystem where payments sit at the center and other services knit into it over time. The logic is simple: if a small business already relies on Zoho’s tools, adding payments, invoicing, lending, and insurance inside one family of products makes life easier. It reduces switching costs, speeds up cash flow, and creates cross-sell opportunities (without needing to push a dozen separate apps).

This approach also makes sense in India’s fast-growing fintech landscape. A domestic, integrated experience can outperform a mishmash of standalone apps when merchants and consumers crave convenience, privacy, and predictable costs. Of course, the road ahead has hurdles: winning trust for a new ecosystem, meeting strict data and payment regulations, and ensuring that the experience inside a chat interface feels safer and smoother than a traditional payments app.

(Here’s the thing…) if Zoho can align privacy-first design with real-world utility—easy invoicing, clear pricing, reliable settlements, and smart protections for small businesses—it could turn Zoho Pay into more than just another payments tool. It could become a platform that many Indian small shops, freelancers, and startups rely on every day.

What this means for consumers and small businesses

What does this mean for you? For individuals, paying, split bills, and sending money could feel more natural when it happens inside a chat you already use. For small businesses, the pull is stronger: fewer apps to manage, cleaner cash flow, and faster access to financing or insurance tied to everyday transactions. The potential to link Arattai conversations with payment intents means you can seal deals, confirm invoices, and receive receipts in a single flow—saving time and reducing friction.

Zoho Pay signifies India writing its own money story inside a homegrown, integrated platform. A future where your business tools, your payments, and your chats work together isn’t just convenient—it could redefine how millions of Indians manage money in daily life and work. The impact could be big, quiet, and lasting.