Google is making a foray into financial services in Japan by acquiring a cashless payment company for between 20 billion and 30 billion yen ($180 million to $270 million), Nikkei has learned.
Google is in negotiations to buy all the shares in Pring, a Tokyo-based cashless payment and settlement startup owned by Mizuho Bank and other investors. Google hopes to be able to offer fintech services, such as payments and transfers, in Japan next year, following launches in the U.S. and India.
Google is planning this move so that it need not depend on third parties for payments and other related services and it would be able to offer these services internally.
Though Google has its own Google Pay services in Japan, it has to depend on other companies for processing credit card and pre-paid card transactions which increase cost and also reduces control and reliability.
The Japanese cashless transactions market is not fully developed as yet. The penetration of cashless payments is still only 30% which means that there is a lot of space for growth, according to Finance Feeds.
Pring currently operates both on mobile as well as computers as it offers payments, cash transfers, and other related services to its client base. It also has onboarded over 400 merchants on its platform who use it for making payments to customers and other merchants as well.
With this acquisition, Google can be expected to take over the licenses that Pring has which means that it would be able to undertake all the services currently operated by the company and more, once the acquisition goes through.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
