PayPay Mobile Payments System Coming to Japan This Fall

While mobile payments have been catching on to one degree or another across large swathes of the globe, there are some places where they just haven’t been firing up to the degree some were expecting. The United States is for many one such place; biggest economy on Earth, you’d think mobile payments would be a lot more than just a mild curiosity, right? Japan is another major economy that hasn’t been getting on the mobile bandwagon, but that’s a point that Softbank is hoping to change, and it’s brought some heavy-hitters in to help.

Softbank, along with Yahoo Wallet and Paytm, is set to bring out the PayPay app this fall, which will join a small but present selection of mobile payments options in Japan like Mobile Suica, Line, and of course, Apple Pay. PayPay will draw a lot of its technological capability from Paytm, particularly its use of quick response (QR) codes.

PayPay likely knows it has an uphill battle to fight here, so it’s got one big promotion planned in concert with this; affiliate stores that get involved now will be able to get in on the first three years of the service for no charge. Additionally, look for PayPay to roll out in a wide range of stores throughout Japan as Softbank starts setting up partnership arrangements.

Given that cashless transactions are just 20 percent of all transactions in Japan, it’s no surprise businesses are eager to make a play for the 80 percent who deal on a cash-only basis. The Japanese government has actually gone so far as to take a stake in this issue, looking to move the proportion up to 40 percent by the end of 2025.

The question is, will anyone care? Yes, Softbank has taken a big step forward here in trying to suborn businesses, but it seems to have forgotten the other big point. Businesses have to offer this service, yes, absolutely, but customers also have to have a reason to use it. It really doesn’t matter how many businesses offer PayPay when customers can just pull out cash.

Softbank et al has done have the job here; let’s just hope they can pull out the second half, or the PayPay plan may end up going nowhere quickly.