Paytm's Japan expedition: Launches QR code payments service with PayPay

Digital payments major Paytm has officially launched its payments service in Japan, the land of one its major investors Masayoshi Son. The founder and current chief executive officer of Japanese holding conglomerate SoftBank will help the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company to expand its overseas operations.

After Canada, Japan is the second offshore market for the Noida-based digital payments firm. Now Paytm in collaboration with  PayPay Corporation (a joint holding entity between SoftBank and Yahoo Japan) will offer QR code based payment solutions in Japan by the second half of 2018.

Like India, Japan is also a cash-dominated economy, which counts only 20 per cent transaction via digital modes of payments. With over 300 million customers and 8 million merchants in India, Paytm can replicate its success story in the rising son of East.

It is anticipated that SoftBank will use Paytm's strategy to go into the deeper market and it aims to double the digital transaction userbase in Japan.

For consumers, the adoption of PayPay will be pushed up mainly by adding up the customer base of Softbank along with Yahoo Wallet which has approximately 40 million users.

Digital payments from PayPay will be available on either the PayPay app or the Yahoo! JAPAN app. It also added that Yahoo Japan will terminate Yahoo! Wallet's current smartphone settlement function after the launch. However, there is no any clarification on the timeline.

Moreover, SoftBank and Paytm plan to take technology to a new level where they will extensively use artificial intelligence for mobile payments and other financial services for retail merchants as well as merchant chains spread across the region.

As of now, instant-messaging platform Line Corp and e-commerce platform Mercari Inc are the two platforms are currently offering the digital payment service in Japan but no one has taken it to the next level or into the international market.

Being one of the biggest mobile service providers in Japan, SoftBank also wants to use the technology to introduce financial services such as lending, insurance, and other services through its wireless carrier service.

While Chinese players like Alibaba and WeChat (leaders in digital payments, QR codes) have been kept away from the Japanese market, this is indeed an opportunity for Paytm to capture the largest marketshare in the country with the help of  SoftBank.

The development was reported by ET.