Zoho, a global technology company headquartered in Chennai, announced its strategic entry into the payments sector with the launch of Zoho Payments, a unified payment solution to help businesses accept money online from their customers. It also introduced B2B payments capabilities that streamline invoice presentment and payments. The B2B payments capabilities offered by Zoho Payments are powered by Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) of NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited (NBBL). This announcement was made along the sidelines of Global Fintech Fest.
“At Zoho, we strongly believe that business finance, banking, and payments should work together,” said Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, Global Head of Finance and Operations BU, Zoho. “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.”
According to the Ministry of Finance, digital payment transactions volume reached a staggering ₹11,660 crores in 2023 from ₹3,134 crores in 2018-19. This significant growth can be largely attributed to the widespread adoption of alternate payment rails like UPI. Businesses can fully leverage such innovative payment solutions when these solutions fit into their pre-existing daily workflows and are an integral part of their finance systems. Zoho enables this with the launch of a comprehensive payment gateway that helps businesses easily accept payments online, and its B2B payments solution through NBBL’s BBPS.
A Unified Payment Solution
Zoho Payments is a PCI-DSS level 1 compliant payment solution that enables businesses to securely accept payments through UPI, 35+ Net Banking options, and cards. Zoho’s payment solution provides a smooth checkout experience to the end customers, drastically reducing the cart abandonment rate and therefore curbing revenue leakage. It offers fraud management, detailed insights on transactions, refunds, payment failures, and allows businesses to handle disputes easily, saving them time and resources.
Moreover, Zoho Payments is tightly integrated with the applications from the finance and operations suite, like Zoho Books, Zoho Billing, and Zoho Invoice. This allows businesses to directly connect with the solution to quickly start accepting payments online instead of having to integrate with third-party payment gateways and create a third-party payment account.
B2B Payments Powered by BBPS
Zoho Payments as a payment aggregator has been registered as a Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) with the NBBL. This means Zoho Payments can onboard buyers and sellers on the BBPS network and facilitate B2B Payments.
Since Zoho Payments is tightly integrated with Zoho Books, businesses using the accounting software can exchange invoices and transactions with their buyers and sellers effortlessly through the BBPS network. Invoices sent through Zoho Books on the BBPS platform will automatically be recorded in the buyer’s ERP or accounting app. Similarly, bills sent by their seller will be recorded automatically in Zoho Books. Businesses can also obtain financing for their unpaid invoices from lenders on the TReDS platform through the BBPS network.
Zoho Payments provides businesses with the flexibility to accept and send payments through multiple modes like NEFT, RTGS, IMPS, UPI, cards and Netbanking. Once payments are received, the relevant information will be updated automatically and reconciled with the corresponding invoice, reducing the need for manual intervention. Businesses will also have the option to make bulk payments for multiple bills, eliminating the cumbersome process of exporting bills for processing payments through the bank.
Zoho is one of the early adopters of B2B payments powered by NBBL’s BBPS, a revolutionary technology that reshapes payments and collections across India. With the experts predicting the market value of the Indian B2B payments sector to reach USD $11 trillion by 2026, businesses can expect more of such significant innovations. Zoho believes in being at the forefront of these innovations to facilitate smooth payment handling and efficient financial management for businesses.
The Global Fintech Fest is one of the largest annual fintech conferences organised by Payments Council of India (PCI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and Fintech Convergence Council (FCC).
