The PayPay Leader Interview is a series introducing the personalities and philosophies of PayPay Group’s top executives. In this edition, we spoke with Teppei Watanabe, who was appointed Head of the newly established Point Solution Sales Division in April 2025, about his future PayPay Point sales strategies and other initiatives.
Teppei Watanabe
Head of Point Solution Sales Division, Sales Group
After working as a salesperson at a real estate company, he joined an FX operating company, a subsidiary of LY Corporation, where he was involved in foreign exchange dealing, business planning, and marketing. In August 2018, he joined PayPay Corporation. After promoting enterprise sales, he moved to the Partner Sales Department. Subsequently, in April 2023, he launched the Point Sales Department, spearheading proposals for sales promotion measures utilizing PayPay Point. Since April 2025, as Head of the Point Solution Sales Division, he has aimed to further increase point issuance and provide solutions.
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Leading the PayPay Point Business to Growth Through “Quantity-to-Quality Transformation”
What are the roles and missions of the Point Solution Sales Division?
Our mission is to solve business challenges for large corporations across a variety of industries, by proposing sales promotion services and measures that leverage PayPay Point. The division is structured into three departments, organized by industry. Department 1 handles manufacturers of daily necessities, food products, etc.; Department 2 covers non-manufacturers such as finance, securities, and utilities; and Department 3 is responsible for sales agencies, advertising agencies, and sales support.
As a division, our mission is “quantity-quality transformation.” This principle dictates that we don’t just focus on the sheer volume of sales activities, but rather leverage that volume as a foundation to enhance their quality. For example, I believe there is still room for deeper industry research, which is fundamental to successful point solution sales. Understanding the main users and promotion methods of manufacturers and merchants is the quickest route to successful sales.
However, the most effective way to obtain the information necessary for this quality improvement is by listening directly to our merchants. Therefore, maintaining a high volume of daily communication is indispensable. I firmly believe that a qualitative shift in our solution proposals emerges only after we have accumulated a substantial amount of these actions.
Please tell us about your career so far?
After graduating from university, I joined a real estate company and worked diligently as a salesperson for about three and a half years. Following that, wanting to acquire skills beyond sales, I moved to an FX operating company under LY Corporation. Working as a foreign exchange dealer, I found it fascinating to engage my mind in a fast-paced environment. I also participated in strategic tasks such as business planning and marketing, dedicating myself to expanding my repertoire of skills.
In 2018, before PayPay’s launch, I was approached and told, “To spread PayPay, we need your strength, Watanabe-san, as you excel at gritty sales.” Honestly, I was half-convinced whether a service where you read a code and pay would truly penetrate society. However, I felt compelled to see the service’s potential with my own eyes, so I jumped into PayPay. Initially, from the merchant’s perspective, I thought PayPay’s challenges included the potential for “payment errors,” despite the high convenience of not needing to carry cash. However, as I proceeded with merchant acquisition, I began to realize that “there isn’t much difference compared to cash payments, and in fact, the benefits are greater.” I distinctly remember gaining a sense of confidence within about six months, thinking, “This is going to be popular.”
Solving Merchant Challenges by Selling “Solutions,” Not Just Points
How did the point sales organization come to be established?
After handling negotiations and merchant agreements for large national chains in the Enterprise Sales Division, I transferred to the Partner Sales Division to promote acquisition via gateways (payment service providers). It was after this that I conceived of point sales.
Previously, our payment business was a significant revenue stream for PayPay. However, with the goal of building the PayPay ecosystem, I felt that revenue from point-based sales promotions would be crucial to establish a new pillar of growth for the business. Furthermore, point promotion, through campaigns involving points, can contribute to manufacturer promotions that could not be supported by payment alone. Of course, product sales also spread to merchants, realizing a “three-way win” that includes PayPay. With this in mind, we first created a small point sales team, and through internal member recruitment, the team grew into the Point Sales Department.
Both key performance indicators, total points issued and commission revenue, recorded steady growth, and the number of members and business scale expanded accordingly. A system was established to provide further value to merchants through PayPay Point. As a result, in April 2025, the organization was restructured into the Point Solution Sales Division.
Most companies conduct daily campaigns to increase sales and brand awareness. When considering user benefits, popular options include cashback and gift card redemption programs. However, upon listening to them, we found that merchants were not necessarily satisfied with their current solutions, with issues such as “users incurring ATM fees when withdrawing cash” or “the hassle of creating physical gift cards.” Our goal is to solve merchants’ administrative problems with PayPay Point while providing users with benefits that surpass those of cash or gift cards.
What are the challenges in promoting PayPay Point, and what strategies are in place to overcome them?
The current challenge we face is that we are not adequately conveying the “superiority of PayPay Point over cash and gift cards” to our merchants. While merchants may have administrative concerns, they often respond with “But users are happiest with cash, right?” when considering promotional effects. This means we need to emphasize the benefits for users more effectively.
By analyzing user data from past PayPay Point initiatives and sharing the reporting results with merchants, we aim to demonstrate that we can provide value equal to or greater than cash. For a user who transacts ¥100,000 with PayPay monthly, ¥100,000 worth of PayPay Point holds the same value as cash. In fact, it could even be argued that PayPay Point is superior, as they can be used without needing to withdraw cash. We will focus on leveraging data to dispel merchants’ preconceptions.
From a medium to long-term perspective, we need to enhance the appeal and usability of PayPay Point themselves. We believe that “product-specific coupons,” which allow PayPay coupons to be set for individual products, and “Point API,” which supports the exchange of PayPay Point with various other loyalty points, could become central to our future.
The former enables manufacturers to conduct promotional campaigns at the product level, allowing for increased exposure and awareness of specific products in a way that aligns more closely with user needs. In the future, we aim to provide unique PayPay-enabled savings experiences, such as “a coupon for the same A-brand product being applicable at any merchant.” The latter, the Point API, allows merchants who currently offer their own loyalty points to introduce PayPay Point as one of their exchange options, thereby enhancing the value of PayPay Point while also improving the convenience of their own loyalty programs.
Treating Others as Your Mirror and Speaking Honestly
What do you value in your work?
The idea that “the other person is your mirror.” This is a lesson I learned from my boss during my time in real estate sales: if you treat others carelessly, they will treat you dismissively. Conversely, if you treat them sincerely, I believe sincerity will be returned. Whether it’s a merchant or a subordinate, I always try to be considerate.
While consideration is a prerequisite, I also value speaking honestly. As a salesperson, I believe that by clearly explaining to merchants what is “possible” and what is “difficult,” and by speaking openly with each other, we can achieve communication that leads to mutual success. It’s a matter of preference, but I personally like the word “frankly” and often use it during negotiations. I focus on using direct and casual language to get to the core of the other person’s true feelings.
What do you keep in mind when managing an organization?
To efficiently achieve our mission of “quantity-quality transformation” and to encourage members to take initiative and challenge themselves, I foster an open organizational culture and increase opportunities for members to work collaboratively as a team. Specifically, we hold weekly regular meetings for the division, departments, and teams to constantly share our strategy, challenges, and messages as a division. When opportunities arise, I actively participate in negotiations. In important negotiations, I lead the conversation, allowing the accompanying general managers and members to learn practical skills that cannot be gained through role-playing alone.
What is the appeal of working in the Point Solution Sales Division?
It’s the ability to leverage PayPay’s 70 million users (as of July 2025) and its overwhelming network of usable stores to popularize various products and services through PayPay Point. There are many instances where merchants experiencing stagnant sales have increased product recognition and sales by implementing promotional campaigns using PayPay Point as an incentive. The greatest appeal is the ability to contribute to both PayPay’s popularization and the resolution of merchant challenges through campaigns that I’ve been involved in from the planning stage, and the ease with which one can feel the social impact of these initiatives.
Aiming to Be the Overwhelming No. 1 in the Point Market
What are your future goals and vision?
To make PayPay Point the “overwhelming No. 1” in the point market. To achieve this, initiatives must not be one-off events but must be implemented continuously. To ensure merchants feel the effectiveness of our initiatives and want to “collaborate with PayPay again,” PayPay conducts detailed effectiveness verification for all point initiatives and always provides feedback on the results.
We believe that this consistent provision of value will lead to a state where the utilization of PayPay Point is naturally incorporated into merchants’ annual promotional schedules. Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where merchants can freely implement PayPay Point initiatives at their own timing, without us needing to conduct any sales.
A message to our readers!
I believe that the three major factors that drive human growth are “what you do,” “when you do it,” and “who you do it with.” Those who can achieve these three at a high level will attract opportunities and be entrusted with larger projects, inevitably increasing their chances to excel. PayPay will continue to strive for further evolution in all its businesses—payment, merchant, and financial—and will keep taking on challenges. We want to work with people who think “how can we do it?” rather than “why can’t we do it?” to contribute to PayPay’s evolution.
*Job openings and employee affiliations are current as of the time of the interview.