Cashfree Challenges Businesses to Rethink Their Default Payment Gateway

Cashfree has launched its festive campaign, ‘Mithai Joint Family’, featuring comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath. Built around the familiar soan papdi joke, the campaign questions the tendency to choose payment gateways by default and highlights additional features businesses can consider when selecting a provider.

Turning a Soan Papdi Joke Into a Business Insight

The campaign draws a parallel between soan papdi, which is often passed from one household to another during Diwali, and payment gateways that provide similar core functionalities.

The film opens with Rath holding a box of soan papdi and observing how the sweet is routinely received but rarely eaten. He then introduces an assorted mithai box, which he refers to as the ‘mithai joint family’, with soan papdi placed alongside other sweets.

Looking Beyond Payment Success Rates

Cashfree uses the comparison to position its payment gateway as an alternative to conventional choices, highlighting features beyond payment success rates.

These include a dedicated account manager, next-day settlements and the ability to go live within minutes.

The campaign uses the festive analogy to encourage merchants to consider the broader set of services and capabilities offered by a payment gateway rather than relying solely on familiar or default choices.

Part of Cashfree’s Zero Payment Gateway Fees Initiative

The campaign is part of Cashfree’s Zero Payment Gateway Fees initiative. Under the initiative, new merchants signing up on the platform can have payment gateway fees waived on their first Rs 20 lakh in sales.

Biswa Kalyan Rath Brings the Humour

According to Aditi Olemann, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Cashfree, the soan papdi reference was chosen because of its familiarity during the festive season.

Olemann said the campaign aims to draw a parallel between the experience of receiving soan papdi and the way merchants can approach payment gateway selection. She added that the brand wanted to communicate the message through a consumer-friendly B2B campaign rather than a conventional business advertisement.

She described Rath’s dry humour as a natural fit for the campaign, helping the brand highlight an assumption that businesses may make when evaluating payment gateways.

First Major Campaign Under New Brand Identity

‘Mithai Joint Family’ also marks Cashfree’s first major communication under its new brand identity, which includes a refreshed visual system and redesigned logo.

The company says the identity refresh reflects its expansion from a payments gateway into an AI-native payments platform.

Through its festive campaign, Cashfree combines a familiar Diwali cultural reference with a business-focused message around how merchants evaluate payment gateway providers.