Privacy Policy | Zoho Payments

1. Introduction

This privacy statement is made by Zoho Payment Technologies Private Limited ("Zoho") and it explains Zoho's privacy practices with respect to the processing of personal information about you, your customers and vendors in relation to your use of the payment solution ("Zoho Payments") and Bill Payments and Collections Service through Bharat Connect ("Zoho BPCS"). Both Zoho Payments and Zoho BPCS shall hereinafter be collectively referred to as "Zoho Payments Services".

If you are a customer or vendor of Zoho Payments Services, this Privacy Policy is not applicable to you and you should contact the relevant user of Zoho Payments Services for information on how your data is processed.

2. Information Zoho collects about you or your Customers

A. Information that you or your Customers provide us

i. Setting up of Zoho Account: order to use Zoho Payments Services, you need an account with Zoho ("Zoho Account"). Zoho conducts a KYC process before creating a Zoho Account and as part of this KYC process we may collect personally identifiable information about you or representatives of your business. Apart from region specific acceptable verification information and documents available here, we may collect:

Information about your business:
Legal name, address, name in which the legal entity carries on its business, business identification numbers issued by government authorities (such as the corporate identification number), phone number, tax identification numbers [such as Goods and Services Tax Identification Number and Permanent Account Number (PAN)], type of the business, industry your business belongs to, details about the websites, description about the business, default currency, payment collection mode, payment statement descriptor, business turnover, and the products or the services sold; and
Support related information such as support address, support email address, support phone number, and support URL.
Information about you or representative of your business:
If you are an owner or a representative of a business that sign up for Zoho Payments Services, we collect certain details about you. This includes name, date of birth, email address, phone number, address, position/title/shareholding/interest in the business and government issued identification cards such as Aadhaar and PAN.
Bank Account Information
We collect your bank account details such as account number, account holder name, IFSC, etc.

ii. Payout Processing: Apart from the information mentioned above, we collect your bank account information (such as account number, IFSC, and account holder name), currency, country, and payout statement descriptor to settle your funds collected through Zoho Payments Services.

iii. Payment Processing: In order to process payments for you, we collect, use and share certain information related to your customers. We collect and use only the information that is necessary to process payments. This varies depending on the payment method chosen by your customer. For example, if your customer chooses to make payments to you using credit or debit card, we will collect name of the customer and the card holder, credit or debit card number, card expiry date, and card CVV. Similarly, if the payment is made using other payment methods made available, we may collect information necessary to process the payment such as name, Virtual Payment Address (VPA), and bank account information. In addition to that, we also collect email address, phone number, billing and shipping address, currency, and purchase amount to process payments.

We do not store your customer's full card number and CVV on our servers or database. We store the last four digits of the card number for transaction tracking purposes.

iv. Event registrations and other form submissions: We record information that you submit when you (i) register for any event, including webinars or seminars, (ii) subscribe to our newsletter or any other mailing list, (iii) submit a form in order to download any product, whitepaper, or other materials, (iv) participate in contests or respond to surveys, or (v) submit a form to request customer support, get a quote or to contact Zoho for any other purpose.

v. Testimonials: When you authorize us to post testimonials about our products and services on websites, we may include your name and other personal information in the testimonial. You will be given an opportunity to review and approve the testimonial before we post it. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at privacy@zohopayments.com.

vi. Interactions with Zoho: We may record, analyze and use your interactions with us, including email, telephone, and chat conversations with our sales and customer support professionals, for improving our interactions with you and other customers of Zoho Payments Services.

B. Information that we collect automatically

i. Information from browsers, devices and servers: When you or your customers visit our websites, we collect information that web browsers, devices and servers make available, such as the internet protocol address, browser type, language preference, date and time of access, time zone, time spent on sites, information about operating system, information about device (such as screen resolution, device manufacturer and model), plug-ins, Add-ons, pages visited, and links clicked. We collect these to understand more about visitors to our websites, to detect, monitor, prevent and take actions against fraudulent activities.

ii. Cookies and tracking technologies: We use temporary and permanent cookies to identify visitor of our websites and users of Zoho Payments Services, to enhance user experience and to monitor, detect, and prevent fraudulent activities. We embed unique identifiers in our downloadable products to track usage of the products. We also use cookies, beacons, tags, scripts, and other similar technologies to identify visitors, track website navigation, gather demographic information about visitors and users, understand email campaign effectiveness and for targeted visitor and user engagement by tracking your activities on our websites. We mostly use first-party cookies and do not use third-party cookies or other third-party tracking technologies on our websites for non-essential or intrusive tracking. You can learn more about the cookies used on our websites here. You can also learn more about Zoho's stance against non-essential and intrusive third-party cookies and tracking technology here. We also use first-party Local Storage Objects (LSOs) such as HTML5 to store content information and preferences to provide certain features.

iii. Information from application logs and mobile analytics: We collect information about your use of our products, services and mobile applications from application logs and in-house usage analytics tools, and use it to understand how your use and needs can improve our products. This information includes clicks, scrolls, features accessed, access time and frequency, errors generated, performance data, storage utilized, user settings and configurations, and devices used to access and their locations.

C. Information that we collect from third parties

i. Information from identity verification providers: To help us provide you Zoho Payments Services , we engage certain third party service providers for identity verification, fraud detection and fraud prevention. We receive certain personal information about you such as name, date of birth, direct or indirect political exposure, current and previous addresses, your company name, and tax payer identification number, contact details such as primary and other phone number(s), status of the phone number(s), carrier information, credit information about your business from such service providers when we: (i) set-up your Zoho Account; and (ii) process your payments initiated through Zoho Payments Services.

ii. Referrals: If someone has referred any of our products or services to you through any of our referral programs, that person may have provided us your name, email address and other personal information. You may contact us at privacy@zohopayments.com to request that we remove your information from our database. If you provide us information about another person, or if another person gives us your information, we will only use that information for the specific reason for which it was provided to us.

iii. Information from our reselling partners and service providers: If you contact any of our reselling partners, or otherwise express interest in any of our products or services to them, the reselling partner may pass your name, email address, company name and other information to Zoho. If you register for or attend an event that is sponsored by Zoho, the event organizer may share your information with us. Zoho may also receive information about you from review sites if you comment on any review of our products and services, and from other third-party service providers that we engage for marketing our products and services.

iv. Information from social media sites and other publicly available sources: When you provide feedback or reviews about our products, interact, or engage with us on marketplaces, review sites or social media sites such as Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn and Instagram through posts, comments, questions and other interactions, we may collect such publicly available information, including profile information, to allow us to connect with you, improve our products, better understand user reactions and issues, or to reproduce and publish your feedback on our websites. We must tell you that once collected, this information may remain with us even if you delete it from these sites. Zoho may also add and update information about you, from other publicly available sources.

v. Other sources: We collect identity related information (such as name, address, phone number, country) about you to monitor, detect, prevent fraudulent activities from other sources like website monitoring service providers, our business partners, financial service providers, and publicly available sources.

3. Information Zoho processes about your vendors

Zoho BPCS service allows you to receive invoices sent by your vendors through their invoicing application providers. We process this information to allow you to view the bills on your invoicing application and make payments to your vendors.

4. Who we share information with

a. Zoho group entities: We may engage one or more of Zoho group entities to provide certain services to us and store your information on the servers of our group entities in accordance with RBI regulations.

b. Employees and independent contractors: Our employees and independent contractors have access to the information covered in this Privacy Policy on a need-to-know basis. Our employees will also have access to data that you knowingly share with us for technical support. We ensure that all our employees and independent contractors who may have access to your information are subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations and are required to ensure that they handle the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

c. Third party service providers: We may need to engage third-party service providers to avail certain services from them, such as video KYC providers, telecom providers to send SMS, event organizers, and web analytics providers. These service providers are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.

d. Identity verification providers: We may need to share some of your personal information that you provide to us during setting up of your Zoho Account or when you process payments, with third-party identity verification service providers and website monitoring services to help us verify your identity and to detect and prevent fraud. These service providers are required to use your personal information in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws.

e. Payment Ecosystem Partners for Zoho Payments: We have partnered with various banks, financial institutions, card networks, payment method providers, payment gateway service providers and other third parties to enable you to accept various payment instruments from your customers. We may be required to share certain information with these parties when they are involved in facilitating the provision of Zoho Payments.

f. Zoho BPCS Providers and Partners: We are required to share certain information about you and your business with NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd., the RBI-authorized Bharat Bill Pay Central Unit ("BBPCU"), banks and invoicing application partners for the provision of BPCS Facility, and to process and settle payment amounts collected from your customers.

g. Disclosures in compliance with legal obligations: We may be required by law to preserve or disclose any information to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements.

4. Purposes for collecting and using your information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes :

To provide you, your customers and other Zoho users with Zoho Payments Services (including but not limited to setting up and maintenance of your Zoho Account and processing of your payments through Zoho Payments Services);
To keep you posted on new products and services, upcoming events, offers, promotions and other information that we think will be of interest to you;
To verify your identity and for detection and prevention of fraudulent transactions or activities;
To protect the rights and interests of Zoho, Zoho’s users, third parties and the public;
To comply with any legal requirements that apply to Zoho (including but not limited to compliance with the requirements under "know your customer", anti-money laundering laws, or anti-terrorism laws).
To understand how you use Zoho Payments Services, to monitor and prevent problems, and to improve our services;
To analyze trends, administer our websites, and track visitor navigations on our websites to understand what visitors are looking for and to better help them;
To ask you to participate in surveys, or to solicit feedback on Zoho Payment Services;
To provide customer support, and to analyze and improve our interactions with you;
To update, expand and analyze our records, identify new customers, and provide products and services that may be of interest to you;
To monitor and improve marketing campaigns and make suggestions relevant to you; and
To communicate with you (such as through email) about Zoho Payments Services, changes to this Privacy Policy, terms of service or other important notices.

5. Purposes for collecting and using your Customers' and Vendors' information

Except in connection with your use of Zoho Payments Services (which may involve sharing of your customers' or your vendors' personal information with banks, BBPCU, invoicing application partners, and other third party providers who help us in offering you Zoho Payments Service), we will never use the personal information of your customers and vendors in any manner unless they are a direct customer of one or more of our Zoho Payments Services.

6. Fraud prevention

Zoho may process information relating to you, your customer and vendors to prevent and detect fraudulent activities, including to develop technologies for fraud prevention and detection.

7. Your obligation to notify your customer and vendor

Your customers and vendors may not be aware of the fact that Zoho will process their personal information in connection with your use of Zoho Payments Services. You agree that you will notify your customers and vendors either by posting a privacy policy on your website or by any other reasonable means that explains to your customers and vendors how you (and how we on your behalf) collect and process their personal information. It is your obligation to get necessary consent from your customers to allow us to collect (from you or your customers directly), process, retain and share information.

8. Compliance with Applicable Data Protection Laws

a. Role of Zoho: We process all the personal information in compliance with applicable data protection and privacy laws including guidelines and directions by the Reserve Bank of India, BBPCU and other regulators. When we process information according to your instructions or for providing services to you, we process the information on your behalf, and our role is that of a service provider. When we process information other than according to your instructions (such as for identity verification, fraud prevention, marketing, or compliance with our legal obligations), we will ensure compliance with all applicable laws.

b. Compliance with Data Subject Requests: Data protection and privacy laws provide certain rights (such as right to know and access the information processed, right to request rectification or correction, right to object to the processing, right to restrict processing, and right to data portability) to the data subjects.

If you are a customer of Zoho Payments Services, we provide you the ability to comply with these data subject requests. If we receive a data subject request directly from your customer or vendor (relating to the information for which we act as a service provider), we will notify you of such request within reasonable time or redirect the data subject to you. It is your responsibility to comply with these data subject requests in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws. If we receive a data subject request (relating to the information that we process for our own purposes), we will comply with the data subject requests as required by applicable data protection and privacy laws.

9. Retention of information

We retain your personal information for as long as it is required for the purposes stated in this Privacy Policy. Sometimes, we may retain your information for longer periods unless prohibited by law, such as to monitor, detect and prevent fraud, prevent abuse, if required in connection with a legal claim or proceeding, to enforce our agreements, for tax, accounting, or to comply with other legal obligations.

10. Third-party integrations you have enabled

Zoho Payments Services may support integrations with third-party products and services. If you choose to enable any third-party integrations, you may be allowing the third party to access the data and personal information in your account. We encourage you to review the privacy practices of the third-party services and products before you enable integrations with them.

11. Children’s personal information

Our products and services are not directed to individuals under 18. Zoho does not knowingly collect personal information from children who are under 18 years of age for its own purposes. If we become aware that a child under 18 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete such information. If you believe that a child under 18 years has provided personal information to us, please write to privacy@zohopayments.com with the details, and we will take the necessary steps to delete the information we hold about that child.

12. Storage and security of information

At Zoho, we take data security very seriously. We ensure that all information mentioned under this Privacy Policy is stored within the legal boundaries of India as required by the Reserve Bank of India and other competent authorities. We have also taken steps to implement appropriate administrative, technical & physical safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, use, modification, disclosure or destruction of your information including any security measures that are required to be implemented by relevant authorities.

13. Grievance Officer

In case of any concerns or complaints in relation to the management of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, you can reach out to our Grievance Officer, Shashank Krishnan P., by sending an email to grievances@zohopayments.com or by writing to: Zoho Payment Technologies Private Limited, No. 48, 49 & 51, PEB Building, Vembuli Amman Kovil street, Vallanchery village, Nandivaram, Guduvanchery, Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu - 603202.

14. Do Not Track (DNT) requests

Some internet browsers have enabled 'Do Not Track' (DNT) features, which send out a signal (called the DNT signal) to the websites that you visit indicating that you don't wish to be tracked. Currently, there is no standard that governs what websites can or should do when they receive these signals. For now, we do not take action in response to these signals.

15. External links on our websites

Some pages of our websites may contain links to websites that are not linked to this Privacy Policy. If you submit your personal information to any of these third-party sites, your personal information is governed by their privacy policies. As a safety measure, we recommend that you not share any personal information with these third parties unless you've checked their privacy policies and assured yourself of their privacy practices.

16. Blogs and forums

We offer publicly accessible blogs and forums on our websites. Please be aware that any information you provide on these blogs and forums may be used to contact you with unsolicited messages. We urge you to be cautious in disclosing personal information in our blogs and forums. Zoho is not responsible for the personal information you elect to disclose publicly. Your posts and certain profile information may remain even after you terminate your account with Zoho. To request the removal of your information from our blogs and forums, you can contact us at privacy@zohopayments.com.

17. Social media widgets

Our websites include social media widgets such as Facebook "like" buttons and X (formerly known as Twitter) "post" buttons that let you share articles and other information. These widgets may collect information such as your IP address and the pages you navigate in the website, and may set a cookie to enable the widgets to function properly. Your interactions with these widgets are governed by the privacy policies of the companies providing them.

18. Enforcement of our rights

We may disclose the information to a third party if we believe that such disclosure is necessary for preventing fraud, spam filtering, investigating any suspected illegal activity, enforcing our agreements or policies, or protecting the safety of our users.

19. Business Transfers

We do not intend to sell our business. However, in the unlikely event that we sell our business or get acquired or merged, we will ensure that the acquiring entity is legally bound to honor our commitments to you. We will notify you via email or through a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or in the uses of your personal information. We will also notify you about any choices you may have regarding your personal information.

20. Compliance with this Privacy Policy

We make every effort, including periodic reviews, to ensure that personal information you provide is used in conformity with this Privacy Policy. If you have any concerns about our adherence to this Privacy Policy or the manner in which your personal information is used, kindly write to us privacy@zohopayments.com. We'll contact you, and if required, coordinate with the appropriate regulatory authorities to address your concerns effectively.

21. Notification of changes

We may modify the Privacy Policy at any time, upon notifying you through a service announcement or by sending an email to your primary email address. If we make significant changes to the Privacy Policy that affect your rights, you will be provided with at least 30 days' advance notice of the changes by email to your primary email address. However, if you have not verified your email address, you may miss important notifications that we send through email. If you think that the updated Privacy Policy affects your rights with respect to your use of our products or services, you may terminate your use by sending us an email within 30 days. Your continued use after the effective date of changes to the Privacy Policy will be deemed to be your agreement to the modified Privacy Policy. You will not receive email notification of minor changes to the Privacy Policy. If you are concerned about how your personal information is used, you should check back at https://www.zoho.com/in/payments/privacy.html periodically.

Privacy Policy For Zoho Payments - India