Paytm powers Japan’s wallet
One97 Communications-backed Paytm on Sunday announced that PayPay Corporation, its joint venture between SoftBank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation, has launched PayPay, a smartphone-based settlement service in Japan.
It is built around the quick response-technology from Paytm, which has over 300 million customers and over 9.5 million offline merchants. SoftBank is utilising Paytm’s technology and expertise in mobile payments.
Just like in India, where Paytm initially relied heavily on cashbacks to gain a large user base, PayPay, has announced that it would be giving electronic money equivalent to 500 yen to each customer downloading the application and authenticating it with a valid Japanese mobile number. In addition, for sellers and establishments, PayPay would not charge any fee for “user scan” type settlement for three years till the end of September 2021.
Paytm is on a major global expansion drive. After launching its wallet in Japan, sources said Paytm is planning to make an entry into Europe. However, things are at a nascent stage and plans of entering Europe might not kick off before next year.
Indications of entering Europe were given last year by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of One97 Communications, when he launched in Canada. In an interview, Sharma had said he wants to build the Paytm app for the world and indicated he wanted to start operations in Japan and Europe. PayPay Corporation, SoftBank, Yahoo Japan and Paytm will expand the number of users by including the customer base of SoftBank and ‘Yahoo! Wallet’, which comprises approximately 40 million accounts.
They will also deploy the platform using SoftBank’s sales know-how, and develop a tailored service offering leveraging Paytm’s technology. Their aim is for PayPay to become the top provider of smartphone payment services in terms of the number of users as well as affiliated stores. With the launch of PayPay, Yahoo Japan will terminate ‘Yahoo! Wallet’s’ current smartphone settlement function.
Just like Paytm wallet, customers will over time be able to use services at a wide range of stores. Customers may select from two types of payment methods, namely credit cards and electronic money.
“We are sure that this will give substantial growth to PayPay Corporation’s business as they provide personalized and seamless digital payments experience to their customers. PayPay was developed with teams from three different countries working together,” Madhur Deora, chief financial officer and senior vice-president of Paytm, said.