TOKYO - PayPay, Japan’s leading QR-code payment service, has announced a partnership with Visa, the world’s largest credit card network, as it looks to expand into the United States, where QR payments remain far less common and tap-to-pay dominates everyday transactions.
Cashless payments have become routine for many consumers in Japan, with smartphones increasingly replacing wallets at checkout, and PayPay used by more than half of the population as payment adoption rises steadily nationwide. The service can now be used at more than 10 million locations across Japan, and new use cases are emerging as digital payments push deeper into daily life, including “cashless offerings” at shrines, where visitors can scan and pay instead of dropping coins into a collection box.
PayPay has also been extending its reach overseas, expanding into South Korea in September last year and enabling users to pay at more than 2 million locations including convenience stores and restaurants, with the service automatically converting currencies at the time of purchase and showing the yen amount debited.
The bigger challenge lies in the U.S., where smartphone tap payments are widely used and some merchants that previously tried QR payments abandoned them after seeing little customer demand. Under the new strategic partnership, PayPay says it will examine ways to support both QR payments and tap payments, combining its strengths in QR-based transactions with Visa’s global card-payment infrastructure to compete in a market shaped by different consumer habits.
PayPay is also positioning the partnership as a way to serve inbound demand, including plans to enable Visa payments at PayPay-affiliated merchants in Japan, which it says would make it easier for foreign visitors to pay while traveling.
Industry data discussed in the program highlighted how Japan’s cashless payment ratio was still around 40% as of 2023, while South Korea was described as approaching near-universal cashless usage, with Japan aiming to lift its ratio to 65% by 2030. Proponents argue that faster checkout is one advantage, with cash transactions taking roughly 26 seconds on average, while tap payments can cut more than 10 seconds, and QR payments can also reduce processing time.
The report also pointed to labor-saving benefits for retailers, citing findings from the Osaka Expo, which operated as an all-cashless venue, where time spent on cash-related tasks such as preparing change and closing registers was effectively eliminated, though concerns remain that customers who prefer cash could be left with fewer options as digital payments expand.
Note: The original material appears to be a TV-style transcript with repeated interjections and informal exchanges; these were condensed into standard newspaper prose while keeping the stated figures and claims intact.
Source: TBS
