PayPay Corporation (PayPay Corp.), a joint venture company of SoftBank Group Corp. and SoftBank Corp., and Yahoo Japan Corporation, will make its own PayPay service partner with code payment services, “KakaoPay” by “Kakao Corp. in South Korea” and “Alipay HK” by Alipay Hong Kong as well as “Alipay” by Ant Financial Services Group (Ant Financial) in China, to provide those code payment services for foreign visitors to Japan who use them. PayPay Corp. has concluded a basic agreement with Ant Financial Japan, which is a Japanese corporation of Ant Financial in China, and from this Autumn, making payments will be possible with Alipay, KakaoPay, and AlipayHK apps at PayPay merchants (*1). In addition, the “Alipay”, “KakaoPay”, and “AlipayHK” apps will be provided with payment system usage fees being free of charge (*2) until the end of September 2020.
Currently, the number of foreigners visiting Japan is increasing year by year, and the annual number of foreign visitors to Japan from China is 8. 38 million, 7. 45 million from South Korea, and 2. 21 million from Hong Kong. The total of foreign visitors to Japan from the three countries and regions has reached about 60% (*3) of the total number of those from all over the world. In particular, most of tourists from South Korea visit Kyushu island, which is the southernmost and third largest of the four main islands of Japan and relatively close in distance to South Korea. Based on the basic agreement, PayPay Corp. will encourage KakaoPay users to visit PayPay merchants and assist in promotion of consumption activities by foreign users visiting Japan.
PayPay Corporation will continue to provide the convenience of smartphone payments to all retailers, service providers and users, aiming to achieve a society where they can do cashless shopping anywhere in Japan.
*1 Some stores are excluded. In addition, this is based on the premise that procedures required under domestic and foreign private laws and administrative regulations have been completed.
*2 This is applicable if the users use the app services by the “user scan (scan payment)” method in which the user reads a QR code presented by the merchant with the app.
*3 The data is for 2018. Source: Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO)
■ About “Alipay”
It is one of the world’s leading payment and lifestyle platform provided by Ant Financial. Ant Financial provides offline payment services for Chinese people also overseas in over 50 countries and regions around the world and has over 1 billion active users combined with its global partners. Tax-free services through Alipay payments are offered in 35 countries and regions. Ant Financial also partners with over 250 overseas financial institutions and payment solution providers to enable payments by Chinese tourists traveling abroad and overseas customers who use Chinese Cross border e-commerce sites . Currently, making payments are possible in 27 currencies.
■ About “KakaoPay”
The number of users:
23 million
The number of merchants:
22, 000 (it is planned to be expanded to 200, 000 in the medium term.)
■About “Alipay HK”
The number of users:
2 million
The number of merchants:
50,000
■ The PayPay app can be downloaded from the links (App Store, Google Play™).
* Supported environments: iOS 10.0 or above, Android 5 or above
* The “QR code” is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.
* App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. TM and © 2019 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
* Google Play is a trademark or registered trademark of Google LLC.
* Other company names, trade names, and product and service names are registered trademarks or trade names of respective companies.
