Japan Cashless Payments Map
We love all that is happening in Japan cashless payments. Alas, it is hard to keep track of it at times, so credit goes to Takashi Hoshikawa, Founder & CEO of Crowd Cast, who published this map in his original post on January 1. We only provide a quick English translation and some additional commentary.
Hoshikawa-san classifies Japanese cashless payment services into three categories:
- Cards, such as credit, debit and prepaid cards
- Electronic money, including IC cards commonly used in public transportation, and
- QR code settlement
There has not been much development recently in the categories of cards and e-money, although the area of “prepaid” has seen new players such as LINE, Kyash and Staple emerging. Significant change could be observed in QR code payments, however. In addition to “LINE Pay” and “Rakuten Pay”, the telecom carriers have also entered the field, with services like “PayPay” (a joint venture between SoftBank and Yahoo!Japan, in collaboration with India’s Paytm, part of SoftBank’s Vision Fund) and “d Pay” (launched by NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest carrier). In addition, the Chinese entrants Alipay and WeChat Pay are looking to acquire domestic licenses to go beyond the servicing of Chinese tourists only.
Clearly, cashless payments have become a very dynamic market place in Japan, so we are looking forward to how the landscape is developing over the coming year or two.
We have previously reported on the state of cashless payments in Japan, the most cash-based society among developed countries:
Japan Cashless Payments: Miyazaki Bank
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