Paytm to enter Japan market with SoftBank

NEW DELHI: Masayoshi Son is a visionary entrepreneur who has seen it all: PC, telecom, mobile internet and now AI, which is the way forward

VIJAY SHEKHAR SHARMA, founder and CEO, Paytm

PayPay Corp., a joint venture between SoftBank Corp. and Yahoo Japan Corp., has partnered with India’s largest payment services provider Paytm to launch barcode-based smartphone payment services in Japan by November, the company said on Friday.

The platform, to be called Paypay, will help Softbank build its mobile payment system and expand mobile payment in Japan.

Japan is heavily dependent on cash for payments, with cashless accounting for only 20% of overall transactions in the country.

“...the Japanese government is taking measures to raise the cashless payment ratio to 40% by 2025, with a long-term goal of 80%, the highest level globally,” Softbank said.

PayPay Corp. was established in June.

With the launch of “PayPay,” Yahoo Japan will terminate “Yahoo! Wallet—its current smartphone settlement function.

The company did not give the date of termination.

“The ‘PayPay’ platform will be seamlessly integrated with Yahoo! JAPAN ID, giving existing ‘Yahoo! Wallet’ customers the option to use PayPay functions within Yahoo! JAPAN’s smartphone application,” the companies said in a joint statement.

“...Masayoshi Son is a visionary entrepreneur who has seen it all: PC, telecom, mobile internet and now Artificial Intelligence, which is the way forward. We want to build a Paytm model on local artificial intelligence that allows us to take mobile payments to a large population where other digital methods haven’t fully penetrated,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive at Paytm.

Softbank Group is one of the largest investors in Paytm.

Paytm, operated by One97 Communication Pvt Ltd, launched barcode or QR (quick response) code- based technology in 2015 and today offers seamless mobile payments to over 300 million customers and eight million merchants.

Paytm’s QR-based payments technology gained momentum in India post the government’s demonetization initiative in late 2016. The launch of the zero-cost QR Code-based payment solution works without using the internet.

A QR code is a machine-readable label that contains information.

In the case of pre-printed QR codes, the only information it contain is the account details of the merchants. After scanning the code, a buyer merely enters the payment amount and approves the payment.