Professionals is a series that spotlights the standout talent powering PayPay Group. In this edition, we talk to three key people behind the PayPay Balance Card: Ryosuke Murakami (Financial Planning), Weina Li (Ina) (Project Manager / Product PMO), and Aishah Azman (Product Manager). In a heavily regulated industry full of constraints, they each leaned on their expertise to push a new service forward—sharing how they work, how they decide, and what makes the job rewarding.
Ryosuke Murakami
Finance Business Promotion
He began his career at a credit card company, where he worked in call center operations and later managed a virtual prepaid card business. He subsequently participated in launching a mobile payment application service. He joined PayPay in December 2022. Currently, as part of Financial Business Development, he leads initiatives to resolve discrepancies in user experience between PayPay and PayPay Card, as well as projects such as the PayPay Balance Card.<br />
Weina Li（AKA Ina）
Project Manager
She previously worked at a major internet company as a Project Manager, where she led regulatory compliance projects in the online payments domain. She joined PayPay in April 2023. She currently works in the Product PMO organization, overseeing and driving multiple key financial service projects across teams.
Aishah Azman
Product Manager
Before joining PayPay, she worked on the development of a points, loyalty, and payments platform in Southeast Asia. She joined PayPay’s Financial Services division as a Product Manager in December 2023. She currently leads product development for PayPay Card and Balance Card related features within the PayPay app, focusing on financial services and bill payment experiences.<br />
The roles of Financial Business Development, PjM, and PdM and what is expected at PayPay
Murakami：
People often assume that work in payments, credit, and financial services is all about minimizing risk and prioritizing safety above everything else. And yes—there are real constraints: regulations, scheme rules, brand requirements, and more. But at PayPay, Financial Planning isn’t about hitting the brakes because of those constraints. It’s about asking: “How do we design this so we can still move forward?”
Financial services can genuinely change people’s lives, so it’s not enough to check short-term consistency. We have to look at whether the structure is sustainable long-term. I’ve worked in the card space before, but environments where business and product teams move as one team (and build everything in-house) are rare.
Our job isn’t to eliminate risk. It’s to understand it and design it into the product. That’s the responsibility—and the craft—of Financial Planning. Bearing that design responsibility is what defines our role. In our day-to-day work, we make decisions in close collaboration with legal, operations, engineering and other cross-functional teams.
Ina：
At PayPay, building as one team also means there are always many stakeholders in the room. With more stakeholders come more discussion points, shifting priorities, and often blurred boundaries of responsibility. If we keep moving without structure, we might stay fast—but the foundation of the project starts to wobble. That’s why project management here is about continuously establishing a structure for progress and clarifying who owns what. We break down issues, redesign priorities, and when mecessary make the hard call to say “We’re not doing this now.” Ironically, those decisions are often what allow the projects to move forward.
In my previous role, I led “defensive” projects like regulatory compliance. At PayPay, I get to drive “offensive” projects with real speed. Keeping structure intact under that speed—that’s the responsibility of a PjM here, and it’s what makes it exciting.
Aishah：
As a Product Manager(PdM), I believe the job is to keep defining what the product is for, even as constraints and requests keep piling up. PayPay is a platform used by over 73 million users (as of March 2026). Even a small spec change can affect a massive number of people. That’s why we can’t move forward when the ‘Why’ and ‘What’ are still unclear. For me, “simplify” doesn’t mean cutting complexity for the sake of it—it means finding the essence and rebuilding around it, so the product feels natural and effortless for users.
I also moved here from a country with different business norms, and I’m taking on a domain that was new to me—credit and cards. Decision-making at this scale is hard, but the impact is huge. That’s what makes PayPay fun.
How financial professionalism and user experience came together in the development of the PayPay Balance Card
Murakami：
The PayPay Balance Card, a virtual prepaid card that allows users to pay with their PayPay balance for online purchases, was a project that brought together the systems and expertise of both PayPay and PayPay Card. The world of branded prepaid cards is heavily regulated and governed by strict network rules. From the outside, it may seem simple—but internally there are countless “reasons why we can’t.”
The role of Financial Business Development is to translate those complex constraints into design conditions that allow the product to move forward, rather than letting them become brakes.
With the goal of an early release, there were moments when operational readiness could not keep pace with system development. Instead of waiting for full automation, I made the decision to move forward while covering certain areas through operational processes first. By minimizing risk without slowing down the pace, we were able to clearly define the “defensive line” from a financial perspective, which gave the entire project a shared understanding of how far we could responsibly move forward.
Aishah：
My mission as a PdM was to translate the strict financial and security requirements defined by Murakami-san into a PayPay-like smooth user experience. The biggest challenge was preserving the same level of simplicity that users already experience with PayPay Card—being able to view their card information in just two taps from the PayPay app’s home screen—while applying it to the PayPay Balance Card.
Naturally, this led to serious discussions around the trade-off between security and convenience. From a financial perspective, there were proposals to introduce additional authentication steps such as SMS OTP for every sensitive action. However, I kept returning to our core purpose: making online payments through PayPay more accessible and seamless.
Rather than applying stronger authentication uniformly, we implemented a risk-based logic that evaluates user risk and determines when stronger authentication is required and how frequently it should occur. This allowed us to meet security requirements while maintaining a fast and stress-free experience for users.
Ina：
As they pursued excellence in their domains, I focused on keeping the structure intact. Large-scale projects often stall in gray zones—areas where ownership is unclear. When debates over authentication intensified and feature requests piled up, I categorized them into Day 1 and Day 2.
We secured alignment on what must ship and what could wait. Protecting the delivery environment was as critical as designing the feature itself. I also coordinated with the Security team to conduct a group-wide beta test at an unprecedented scale. Stepping into the gaps between teams and acting as a traffic controller—that was my role in completing this puzzle.
What it means to create value within constraints and what comes next
Murakami：
As a part of Financial Planning, our responsibility is to design structures that remain sustainable over time. The real question is not whether constraints exist. It’s whether we allow them to stop us, or translate them into forward-looking design. I find the most meaning in that decision-making process.
Every day, we work across legal, operations, and engineering teams to determine how much risk can be embedded into the system—and where we can responsibly move forward. As we continue building new services that haven’t existed before, these challenges will only increase. I look forward to working with people who see constraints not as obstacles, but as inputs to better design.
Ina：
The work of a PjM ultimately comes down to one thing: when the structure begins to shake, do you step in and rebuild it. In practice, that means redefining priorities, clarifying scope, and aligning stakeholders again and again. It means protecting the delivery environment so teams can focus on execution.
Different members see different risks and guard different responsibilities, but someone must ensure that the project as a whole continues moving forward. If you’re the kind of person who can break down ambiguity and keep moving, I’d love to work with you.
Aishah：
For me, being a PdM means constantly returning to purpose. In daily work, that translates into making trade-off decisions about features, flows, and priorities—always measured against the core question: what is this product truly for? If you find it exciting to design your way forward under constraints, or if turning ambiguity into structure feels rewarding—then I truly believe you can build great things while enjoying the challenge.
Working at PayPay means facing challenging decisions on a large scale.. But within that difficulty, there’s a tangible sense of impact. It’s a field worth taking on.
