Popular Mobile Payment Services in Japan
PayPay – PayPay is operated by PayPay Corporation, the joint venture of Softbank and Yahoo!Japan. Though this is one of the newest mobile payment services, its brand awareness is very high because of the generous reward promotion campaign it conducted in December 2018. (We will cover this promotion in the next article, “Mobile Payment in Japan 2019: A Growing Market with Major Challenges”) To use it, you need to connect your PayPay account with your bank account or Yahoo! Wallet accounts. This app also allows you to send money to your friends and family.
LINE Pay – Line Pay is one of the services provided by messaging app giant, LINE. The app has 79 million users in Japan and 194 million users globally. You can add balance to your LINE Pay account through your bank account or at convenience stores. It also offers an auto-charge function for more convenience.
Rakuten Pay (楽天ペイ) -Rakuten Pay is a payment service offered by Rakuten, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Japan. You need to sync Rakuten Pay to your credit card. The benefits of using Rakuten Pay is you can earn Rakuten reward points which can be used in shops. Moreover, if you have a Rakuten credit card, you can earn double rewards points. You can use Rakuten Pay at both online and offline retailers.
Origami Pay -Origami is the Japanese leading mobile payment startup company based in Tokyo. Many retailers offer a discount through Origami. Currently, Origami is available at more than 1.45 million partner stores in Japan and more than 1,000 partner stores globally. You can discover its partner stores on the map in the Origami app.
D-barai （D払い）– D-barai is a mobile payment service offered by Japan’s major mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo (“Barai” mean payment in Japanese.) This payment solution allows DoCoMo users to pay for their monthly phone bills. Since users are already registered with a Docomo account, they don’t need to connect their bank account or credit cards. You can earn reward points that can be used for online and offline shopping along with phone bill payments.