20 news stories.
• Should Softbank be in the NFCW Expo? Is this your organisation? Find out how to get your NFCW Expo showcase.
• Should Softbank be in the NFCW Expo? Is this your organisation? Find out how to get your NFCW Expo showcase.
The introduction of the Japanese government’s Cashless Japan initiative, which provides consumers with cashback incentives when they use a card or mobile phone to make a purchase, has led to a significant upswing in mobile payments adoption, according to reports from a number of merchants and mobile payments providers... More
Japan’s PayPay to update app after wrongful charge complaints — Bloomberg — “An unspecified number of customers called in and e-mailed to report charges on their bills that they didn’t recognize, according to PayPay spokesman Fumihiro Ito. Several consumers say they hadn’t even installed the app but their credit cards were billed for purchases they didn’t make… PayPay triggered a shopping frenzy earlier this month by promising to give users 10bn yen (US$88m) in rebates from their purchases.”
SoftBank and Yahoo Japan-backed PayPay is to go live in Japan on 4 December with a 10bn yen (US$88.6m) promotional campaign that will see users receiving a 20% cashback on all the purchases they make with the new QR mobile payments service between the launch date and 31 March 2019, up to a monthly cashback total of 50,000 yen (US$443) per customer... More
Berkshire Hathaway confirms investment in Paytm parent One97 Communications — Economic Times — “Berkshire Hathaway has confirmed that it has made an investment in Paytm parent One97 Communications… ET had reported that Berkshire Hathaway is in talks to invest about Rs2,000-2,500 crore (US$285m-US$356m) in One97 Communications, that could value the company at $10bn. One97 Communications already counts China’s Alibaba Group Holdings and Japan’s Softbank among its major investors.”
SoftBank and Yahoo Japan JV to launch ‘PayPay’, barcode-based smartphone payment services in collaboration with India’s Paytm in the fall — SoftBank — “PayPay Corporation, a joint venture established by SoftBank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation, today announced that the company will launch ‘PayPay’ smartphone payment services using barcodes (QR code) in fall 2018. PayPay Corporation will team up with India’s largest digital payment company Paytm, a SoftBank Vision Fund portfolio company, to utilize Paytm’s technology and expertise in mobile payments… The service will be free to affiliate stores for the first three years from its launch.”
SoftBank plans payments service for Japan by year-end — Bloomberg — “The service, a collaboration with Indian startup Paytm, will make extensive use of artificial intelligence for mobile payments and other financial services, the people said, asking to not be identified as the plans are private. An announcement is imminent, they said. Dozens of Paytm employees are working in Tokyo on getting the service up and running, one of the people said.”
Softbank plots digital payments raid with plans for Paypal rival — City AM — “Japanese technology giant Softbank is planning to create a global digital payments system that could rival giants such as PayPal, according to reports. The tech firm will lead a consortium backed by some of the world’s biggest banks… Under the plan, Softbank could acquire a large financial software business as a springboard to rolling out the new system.”
India’s top payment app has eyes on US market — Wall Street Journal — “India’s largest mobile payment app — backed by the likes of China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp — has its eye on the US, its founder said. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s D.Live Singapore event, Paytm founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma said his aim is to expand into developed markets, also including Japan and Europe.”
SoftBank, Sprint, Far EasTone and TBCASoft launch Blockchain consortium for telecom carriers — SoftBank — “SoftBank, Sprint and TBCASoft succeeded in demonstrating cross-carrier top-ups, mobile wallet roaming, international remittances and IoT payment on a cross-carrier payment platform system using TBCASoft’s blockchain technology.”
Paytm raises $1.4 billion from SoftBank to expand user base — Bloomberg — “The funding into One97 Communications, which operates the Paytm brand, will help the startup expand its user base of 220 million and build a large offering of financial services products… Alibaba and its payments affiliate Ant Financial held a 40 percent stake in One97 before this investment.”
Apple has confirmed that its new flagship smartphones — the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus — and the second generation Apple Watch will be equipped with Sony FeliCa NFC technology... More
Customers at Pizza Hut locations in Asia will soon be able to place orders, receive offers and complete payments on a tablet held by Pepper, a humanoid robot developed by SoftBank Robotics. The transactions will be completed through MasterCard’s MasterPass digital wallet service. More
Twitter has invested an undisclosed sum in Boston-based proximity marketing specialist Swirl, hinting the social media platform could be looking at using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to push messages. The social media giant has invested alongside Hearst Ventures, Softbank Capital and others in an $18m series-C round, taking the total raised by Swirl so far to $32m... More
There are 20.55 million NFC mobile handsets in use in Japan according to new data compiled by the Mobile NFC Association... More
Japanese carrier Softbank has unveiled the Arrows A 301F, an NFC smartphone built by Fujitsu that includes a fingerprint reader on the rear of the phone for unlocking the device... More
Banking group Sumitomo Mitsui is to introduce an NFC payments service this month that will be available through all three Japanese mobile network operators — NTT Docomo, Softbank and KDDI — and will work with a total of 31 NFC phones available from the three carriers... More
Japanese mobile operator KDDI will offer the world’s first phone with both NFC and Felica support from this summer... More
The Korean mobile network operator has committed to an aggressive plan to quickly move large numbers of its customers towards NFC services by deciding that, from now on, it will only offer smartphones equipped with NFC functionality. More
The Japanese mobile network operator is to provide a range of stickers compatible with the Edy, Waon and Nanaco payments services from February, enabling iPhone 4 users to make use of Japan’s well established mobile payments services for the first time. More
NTT Docomo has begun the world’s first mass market deployment of mobile phones with NFC tag reading capabilities. Sixteen of the operator’s new range of mobile phones and a number of existing handsets will be able to perform both Osaifu-Keitai mobile contactless payments functions and NFC tag reading from next week. More