Thread by @patio11

"Hey Patrick, what does the payments landscape look like in Japan?"

I count 48 different ways you could pay at this convenience store. Plus cash, naturally, which is the most common one.

There is currently a *brutal* battle going on for transitioning customers to app-based payment methods.

The Japanese government wants to double, to approximately 40%, the percentage of consumer transactions which use some form of payment rails.

Banks are pushing credit and debit cards very, very heavily, and convenience stores (which are intrinsically extremely high-volume low-margin businesses) are rolling out or partnering with app-based payment providers, which they believe will save money and gain share-of-spend.

The primary sales pitches for app-based payment methods are saving time (credit card payments historically take longer to process at Japanese registers than any other payment type; app-based is virtually instant) and saving money via point-back systems or integrated loyalty.

The subsidization to get installed userbases is *intense*. c.f. Paypay which spent 10 billion yen (~$100M USD) to purchase +/- 3 million users.

(This fact is reasonably public; c.f. horse's mouth here: about.paypay.ne.jp/pr/pr20190808_… )

"Where did all that money come from?"

You have to ask which large Japanese tech company splashes 9 figures of USD at a time out of conviction that a new market is going to eventually be massive and they'd prefer to own all of it? ;)