At Zoholics US, which is being held in Houston this year, Zoho has made a series of announcements. The first is the launch of Zoho Payments in the US. Zoho Payments was first launched in India last August. Zoho Payments provides a unified solution that will provide secure, seamless, and scalable payment processing across its applications.
The other announcement was the launch of ULAA as a fully enterprise-ready browser, with security controls that enterprise IT teams have been asking for, for a while. The third is the addition of new generative AI and workflow orchestration capabilities to CRM for Everyone, its latest CX platform.
What is Zoho Payments
Zoho Payments offers multiple payment options, including cards and ACH. It supports over 135 currencies, enabling the firm to expand the global reach of its business relationships. The system has built-in dispute management, ensuring that organisations can resolve disputes in a timely fashion. The system will track disputes, enable customers to submit evidence, and fully manage the chargeback process.
The system consists of robust risk and fraud management. Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, Global Head – Zoho Finance, stated that the solution has “a complete KYC check, identity verification, AML and various sanction screenings. It abides by various compliance rules that are set by the card networks like Visa and MasterCard and by the various central banks and the banks whom we use as the acquiring bank.”
Over the years, Zoho has integrated its applications, including Zoho Commerce, Zoho Invoice and Zoho Books, into different payment platforms. Those integrations still exist, but it is now offering their solution at an attractive price point that will appeal to many customers. With the launch of Zoho Payments, Zoho will have even better control and automation over financial workflows used by customers.
The reports available within Zoho Payments also provide better visibility on payment transactions, payouts, refunds, payment failures, and account summaries. The solution also delivers an overview of cash flow, payment trends, and operational bottlenecks.
Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho, commented, “As digital payments become the default preference for everything from online purchases to subscription services, businesses need a payment solution that not only offers flexibility, but is also tightly connected to their financial operations.
“Zoho Payments closes this gap by natively connecting with our ecosystem, enabling seamless collections across different use cases. Our solution provides businesses with better authorization rates, strong risk management, automated reconciliation, and helps minimize losses from fraud and chargebacks, delivering real operational value as payment volumes grow.”
Why Payments
Consumers are increasingly turning to online payments for everything. Zoho notes that nearly “87% of transactions are now cashless and 81% of US consumers prefer to pay by card.” Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta indicated that only 18% of payments are made in cash today, 13% by ACH and 60% by either debit or credit cards.
Mobile payments remain low compared to Europe at just over 1%, and Check payments are now down to only 3%. Businesses must keep pace with this change. The challenge is that there is a wide variety of choices for payment platforms, which then need to be integrated with eCommerce and financial software.
Zoho Payments, along with its portfolio of applications, means that it can deliver a complete business application suite to run the organisation.
James Martin, Founder and CEO of Keystone Transport Services, commented, “Our transportation company has used third-party payment portals before, but they came with extra logins and separate integrations that didn’t fit smoothly into our workflow. It made sense for us to try Zoho Payments since we were already using Zoho Books.
“The integration was seamless. Its automation capabilities ensured that there were minimal interventions by our teams, significantly reducing the required overhead for onboarding and managing new customers. Now, one person can easily accomplish over 100 times the work as before.”
Alvaro Lafee, CEO of Logoscorp, notes, “Zoho Payments is a great solution. It integrates flawlessly with Zoho Books. The entire onboarding was simple and easy. Now, we process most of our payments through it. We believe that Zoho Payments’ clean and intuitive interface rivals any payment gateway solution.”
Core Capabilities
Zoho Payments is already integrated across many of the Zoho Apps from finance and operations, sales and marketing, low-code, and collaboration platforms. The supported apps include:
- Zoho Commerce
- Zoho Inventory
- Zoho Invoice
- Zoho Books
- Zoho Billing
- Zoho Checkout
- Zoho Backstage
- Zoho Sign
- Soho SalesIQ
- Zoho People
- Zoho Creator
- Zoho Bookings
- Zoho Backstage
Zoho supports a wide variety of payment workflows, including payment links within invoices, hosted payment pages for one-off or subscription payments, eCommerce checkouts, and others. Zoho has built the capability to service virtually any requirement a business may have as it uses its business applications. The online payment options ensure faster payments and improve cash flow.
Zoho Payments is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant. The Zoho platform on which it sits also meets several other global compliance and security requirements, including:
- SSL – encrypted data
- Multi-factor authentication
- GDPR Compliant
- PSD2 Compliant
- SCA Compliant
- 3D Secure
Robert Kugel, Executive Director of Information Services Group, commented, “Zoho Payments bridges the operational gap between financial transactions and financial workflows, embedding payment capabilities into Zoho’s ecosystem. Users can reduce their use of external tools and have a more seamless experience from collections to payouts, simplifying the day-to-day operations of businesses.”
Pricing and Availability
Zoho Payments is available now. The product page claims that thousands of customers in the US are already using the platform. The fees are simple:
- Domestic Cards 2.90% + 30 cents per transaction.
- International Cards 4.4% + 30 cents per transaction (stated as 1.5% in addition to the domestic card fee). There is also a 1% currency conversion fee charged for non-US currency. It is not clear what exchange rate is used, though.
- ACH Direct Debit 0.80% per transaction, capped at $5.00, with $1 per instant bank account validation.
- The payment cards currently supported are Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, JCB, UnionPay, and Diners Club.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is a brave step by Zoho into the financial services market. It has chosen the largest global online payments market as its second launch country. In 2023, the US contributed 30.4% of global payment gateway revenues, with Fortune Business Insights estimating the global online payment market size to be projected to reach USD 17,643.35 billion by 2027.
Zoho Payments is just the start, Iswaran indicated that Zoho will be expanding its Fintech portfolio in the future. He also added that after India and the US, “we will be covering a lot more countries soon.”
Zoho Payments could change how some organisations perceive a payments platform. Zoho Payments is a clever move by the company, as there are obvious benefits for customers to invest not just in Zoho Payments, but the other applications. With everything on a single platform, Zoho customers should find it simple to implement new payment types and business models, which seamlessly operate within their Zoho Technology stack.
It will be interesting to see whether the launch of Zoho Payments also makes other Zoho Applications, such as Commerce, more attractive.
