The State of Cashless Around the World : a PayPay Inside-Out and SoftBank News Collaboration

When talking about the group companies of SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434), one would be remiss not to mention PayPay Corporation. Jointly formed by SoftBank Corp. and Yahoo Japan in 2018, in collaboration with India’s largest digital payment company Paytm PayPay launched its two-dimensional code and barcode-based mobile payment service “PayPay” later in the same year. As of writing, PayPay now has over 45 million registered customers.

PayPay Inside-Out is an online publication that provides information and insights about the people and culture of PayPay. In the spirit of both companies’ collaborations, the editors of the English edition of SoftBank News and PayPay Inside-Out decided to team up on a new series of articles.

When paying for groceries and restaurant bills, cash payments continue to be entrenched in Japan despite the government’s goal of making 40% of all payment transactions cashless by 2025. How does Japan’s state of cashless payments compare to other parts of the world?

For the first article in a series of collaborations, PayPay Inside-Out and SoftBank News decided to find out. We asked PayPay employees, who hail from more than 40 countries around the world, about the state of cashless payments around the world.