SoftBank Group unit PayPay will affiliate with KakaoPay, permitting users of the South Korean app to pay at PayPay stores and restaurants without the need of signing up for the Japanese service. KakaoPay, a subsidiary of internet company Kakao, will update its app so it can read PayPay's QR code at merchants as early as October. Typically, QR payment codes are app-specific.
PayPay, that also has an identical arrangement with Alibaba Group Holding unit Alipay, has signed up more than 8 million people and about 700,000 merchants in Japan. KakaoPay boasts some 23 million users, generally in South Korea.
The focus on guests comes as Japan plans to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games next summer. It also comes during a bigger push by the Japanese government to encourage wireless payments in the country. Japan ranks a lot less than its Asian peers in the rate of cashless transactions, and is hurrying to make itself friendlier to financial technology startups.
Japanese chat app operator Line created improvements to its mobile wallet platform in June to ensure that Line Pay merchants can take payments via Naver Pay, a service operated by South Korean parent company Naver. As early as this year, Line Pay stores will additionally start accommodating customers of WeChat Pay, offered by Chinese Internet powerhouse Tencent Holdings, as well as Line Pay users from Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia.
Line also has an extra partnership with Payco, a platform by a unit of South Korean Internet company NHN, that allows customers of the two services to make payments in both countries. Payco assists more than 9 million customers with a network of 140,000 merchants.
Not only is Line Pay looking to enlarge its reach, but it is also preparing to add more services, said Hisahiro Chofuku, Line Pay's chief operating officer. 'We want to link overseas payment services through the Line Pay platform so that we can offer a cross-border remittance service,' he said.
Mobile wallet services in Japan are waging a price war to gain new merchants and users, slashing fees and enhancing member rewards, in a swarmed market with some two dozen players. PayPay and Line hope deals with international platforms will assist separate themselves and entice retailers looking to become more tourist friendly to join their networks.
International visitors used up an aggregate 4.51 trillion yen (.5 billion) in Japan in 2018, up 2% on the year, in line with the Japan Tourism Agency. Visitors from China and South Korea, the top two countries with regard to visitors, were responsible for around half of that spending.
Source: TRONSERVE
US 1400 
MY 772 
CN 119 
AU 92 
CA 71 
GB 61 
AP 61 
DE 56 
