Zeta was founded in 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati with a vision to disrupt India’s digital payments space, making it easy, inclusive and valuable for corporations, employees and merchants everywhere. “We forayed into digitised enterprise solutions with revolutionary solutions for employee tax benefits, automated cafeterias, and gifting. Our products revolve around the central idea that spending and receiving money should be easy, fast, and trouble-free,” says Ramki Gaddipati, Co-founder and CTO, Zeta, adding that in a span of just three years Zeta has over 13,000 corporate clients with over 1.4 million salaried employees as its users and a current run rate of 16 million transactions per month. Zeta has also forged strong partnerships with market leaders like Sodexo, RBL Bank, IDFC Bank,Cnergyis Infotech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ADP India, Excelity Global and Aon Hewitt among others.
The first solution introduced, in 2016, was Zeta Tax Benefits, an innovative cloud-based enterprise solution for employee benefits. “The tax benefits suite includes smart solutions such as fuel and vehicle maintenance, telecom reimbursement, gadget allowance, gift card, LTA and many more. Zeta Tax Benefits makes it possible for employees to save up to INR 80,000 in taxes every year,” states Gaddipati, pointing out that for corporations, it offers the unique advantage of managing all grants digitally on one single portal, which is a step directed at bringing down time, costs and resources involved in managing employee benefits. Employees can spend these grants via the Zeta payment suite, which includes the Zeta app and the Mastercard and RuPay-powered Zeta Super Card.
Zeta Express is a smartphone-based meal ordering and payment solution, which according to Gaddipati, is revolutionising the corporate cafeteria space. He informs that with Express, employees can place an order from the convenience of their desks using the Zeta app within seconds, thereby enabling an efficient meal ordering experience. Zeta Express is complemented with the Zeta Super Tag, which is a NFC enabled one tap payment instrument and Express Remote, a mobile meal ordering and tracking system. In addition, it is complemented with the Zeta Express Kiosk, which is an automated cashier that eliminates the need of queuing up at cafeterias.
Zeta Spotlight is an on-demand platform to digitally manage every kind of gifting and R&R need for employees and channel partners. “From On-the-spot awards to festive occasions, sales incentives to special occasions, a corporate can plan and execute gifting for every occasion digitally with Zeta Spotlight. Corporates can even choose the way they want to gift, using a choice of cards (physical and virtual), brands vouchers or cash transfers, all from the comfort of the desk,” mentions Gaddipati.
Zeta’s enterprise solutions cater to corporate clients and their employees and vendors irrespective of their size, demographics or industry, remarks Gaddipati, reminding that that Zeta’s powerful platform has enabled over 13,000 corporates digitise their programmes and offerings to employees. Employee benefits and gifting is a key factor in attracting and retaining employees but these programmes are usually very complex to execute given the hassles of logistics, time and effort and costs to administer it.
“With the advent of the digital era and the changing workforce requirements, Zeta has enabled corporates digitise all their employee programmes and administer the same in the most cost effective and efficient manner. Zeta’s single digital interface can empower a company manage any and every employee benefits and gifting programme,” explains Gaddipati, giving a list of Zeta’s benefits, which include:
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Zero paperwork: no hassles of paper claims
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Instant disbursement: Grants or gift vouchers can be sent instantly to employees across cities
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Customisation: Companies can predefine usage rules for every programme
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Transparency: Fully digital process grant a clear view of the claims and grants
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No pilferage : Zero changes of theft and loss of grants or vouchers
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Happier employees: Easy of use has made more and more employees to avail and appreciate the benefits offered by companies
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Security: Super secure transactions and bank grade security
“Our focus was to make payments inclusive and we have driven innovation in this space using technology. Today Zeta supports multiple modes of payments via the app as well as physical cards, NFC and RFID-enabled devices. And given our sometimes unsteady internet connection, our payment model works even for offline solutions. We have even made card payments more secure than regular bank cards by introducing a first of its kind dynamic code instead of the static 4 digit PIN,” states Gaddipati. He believes that whether it’s the payment systems or the way people submit reimbursements, Zeta has managed to break the status quo and introduce innovation in regular mundane activities that benefit the user significantly. “Innovation has always been at the core of what we do. The focus is always on identifying processes and activities related to our product and what we do and to try and improve upon them,” he asserts.
The immediate focus of the company is to enhance and strengthen its current offerings across our businesses. “From a technology perspective, we are investing in emerging areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics as we look to offer better services with more actionable information to our clients,” affirms Gaddipati.
Zeta was recently awarded the best B2B platform and the best Payment App at the Payments and Cards Summit 2018. The company was also recognised as one of India’s most innovative product companies at NASSCOM Emerge 50 awards 2017 and was named the Fintech Rising Star for 2017 by the India FinTech Forum.