Paytm’s PayPay Reaches 10M Users, 1M Merchants In Japan

A Japanese venture launched in 2018 by Paytm, India’s top payments app, now has 10 million customers in Japan, according to a report on Thursday (Aug. 8).

PayPay is also getting support from one million merchant partners and local stores in Japan, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm, told the news outlet. He added that the mobile payments app has clocked over 100 million transactions to date in the nation.

With 120 million internet users in Japan, cash still dominates most transactions, especially since some places, like supermarkets and medical clinics, do not accept cards.

Paytm now has more than 250 million registered users in India, which is also a mostly cash-based society. Most people signed on after the Indian government invalidated much of the cash in the nation in late 2016.

PayPay is among the few local payments players in Japan; the instant messaging app LINE is its biggest competitor, with 32 million people using its payments system. LINE, like PayPay, is flush with money and recently launched a rewards program to increase its user base.

In a statement to the outlet, PayPay said that moving forward, it “will strive to create a society where people can buy anything through cashless payments in every corner of the country with a safe and secure service.”

PayPay’s rewards campaign offers cash back when customers make a certain number of transactions and participate in referral programs. It also offers a cash incentive to each customer who downloads the app and authenticates it with a valid Japanese mobile number.

Paytm entered Japan last October after forming a joint venture with SoftBank and Yahoo! Japan. Earlier in July, it boasted eight million registered users. People using PayPay get a 20 percent rebate for payments using a bank account, 19 percent with a Yahoo! credit card and 10 percent with other types of credit cards. The app is also waiving fees for sellers and establishments until the end of September 2021.