Scaling payments and working capital to power Zepto’s growth
Helping a high-growth quick-commerce platform strengthen liquidity, automate supplier payments, and scale treasury operations.
As Indian grocery delivery app Zepto scaled its quick-commerce model across urban India, it needed a payments and working capital platform that could keep pace with rapid growth. Standard Chartered helped Zepto centralise supplier payments, automate reconciliation and improve real-time liquidity visibility, while enabling early payments and preserving strong vendor relationships.
Results
- Stronger liquidity control: Supplier financing helped Zepto use payables more strategically while preserving cash for growth.
- Greater operational scalability: Automated payment flows and reconciliation increased efficiency and scalability to meet Zepto’s growing transaction volumes.
- Improved treasury visibility: Real-time dashboards enabled clearer forecasting, better control, and faster decisions.
- Sustained supplier confidence: Timely payments and scalable onboarding supported strong supplier relationships during rapid expansion.
Background
Zepto Limited (Zepto) is an Indian quick-commerce platform, headquartered in Bengaluru. Founded in 2021, the company specialises in fast delivery of daily essentials in urban areas. Speed is Zepto’s differentiator, enabled by its network of mini warehouses in ten metropolitan regions across India. With product availability in close proximity, its customers receive orders often within 10 minutes.
Zepto has scaled quickly to become one of India’s fastest growing startups and now serves more than 1.7 million people daily.
Client challenges and objectives
Zepto’s rapid growth created a clear treasury challenge: supplier payments need to remain fast, dependable, and scalable without placing additional strain on liquidity or operations. To protect its competitive edge, it sought a payables model that could support higher transaction volumes, strengthen cash-flow control, and maintain supplier confidence.
Zepto’s priorities were to:
- Optimise liquidity around supplier payments while preserving supplier trust.
- Reduce manual intervention and payment delays as transaction volumes increased.
- Deploy a balance-sheet-light supplier financing programme with scalable onboarding.
- Automate reconciliation and improve real-time treasury visibility.
Innovative solutions create opportunities, but successful growth depends on effective implementation. Our team worked closely with Zepto to digitise and automate its payables ecosystem, delivering greater liquidity, control, and operational scalability.Arlene GanGlobal Head of Implementation, Transaction Banking
Solution and implementation
To support Zepto’s growth ambitions, we partnered with the company to redesign its payable ecosystem with a focus on liquidity optimisation, automation, and scalability – wrapped in enhanced security.
In the review of Zepto’s operating model, the Bank’s Global Implementation team first sought to understand the client’s intent to fully digitise trade payables to its vendors. The team then proposed an integrated working capital flow with payment automation, aimed at enabling Zepto to improve cashflow management whilst continuing to provide suppliers with timely access to funds.
Using host-to-host connectivity, Zepto’s ERP system was seamlessly integrated with the Bank’s, allowing payment and financing processes to be automated end-to-end. This reduced operational complexity, minimised manual intervention, and enabled more efficient supplier onboarding as transaction volumes continued to grow.
The integrated solution strengthened visibility across the payables cycle, improved reconciliation efficiency, and provided greater control over working capital. By bringing together financing and payment execution within a scalable framework, Zepto was able to support rapid business expansion while maintaining supplier confidence and operational resilience.
Key highlights of the solution are as follows.
The new system and workflow have resulted in increased efficiency, full system automation, improved turnaround times, better control, and complete audit and transaction visibility.Ram KishanpuriaVice President, Corporate Finance & Treasury, Zepto Limited
Related insights
Case study: Toll Group
Discover how Toll Group mobilised liquidity, reduced borrowing and supported growth through its Singapore hub an…