Stripe accelerates growth in Japan; the first market outside the US and UK to benefit from Stripe Identity

In 2023, industry losses in Japan from credit card fraud reached an all-time high of 54 billion yen, a 20% increase from the previous year, and nearly a five-fold increase over the past decade.

Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, today announced a range of new products in Japan that provide more tools for reaching consumers and growing revenue, domestically and abroad.

In response to strong local growth, with payment volume on Stripe in Japan increasing 55% in 2023, Stripe is further investing in products tailored to Japanese companies and enterprises selling to Japan. The new products and features include the ability to work with multiple payment processors through the Vault and Forward API, installments for consumer payment flexibility, and enhanced verification through Stripe Identity. The announcements took place at Stripe Tour Tokyo, the company’s annual internet economy conference in Japan.

“Stripe’s growth in Japan is accelerating, and so we’re increasing our investment with new products tailored specifically for this market to make doing business much easier. We’re also opening up our platform so Japanese enterprises can use Stripe alongside their existing tools,” said Eileen O’Mara, chief revenue officer at Stripe.

Stripe launched in Japan in 2015 and now serves many of Japan’s leading enterprises, including Toyota, Nikkei, and more. Stripe also supports global companies such as X, Shopify, Uber, and others that are extending their business into Japan.

At Stripe Tour Tokyo, Stripe announced the release of its Vault and Forward API to Japanese companies. This makes it possible for businesses to adopt Stripe Billing and Stripe Tax, while processing payments with other providers. This interoperability particularly helps large enterprises that can now take advantage of Stripe’s product suite without breaching other long-term contract commitments.

Installment payments with faster payouts

Coming soon, Japanese businesses on Stripe will be able to offer card installment payments to their customers. In Japan, consumers can choose to pay the full purchase amount at once (ikkatsu barai, or “one-time payment”) or in installments. Previously, businesses might not have received their funds for up to six months; Stripe’s solution now shortens this to just four business days.

Stripe already supports a growing list of local payment options such as Konbini (convenience store) payments, bank transfers (known locally as Furikomi), and the acceptance of JCB cards. These are part of Stripe’s Optimized Checkout Suite (OCS), which uses machine learning to surface the most relevant payment methods to buyers. OCS supports more than 100 payment options and Link, Stripe’s one-click checkout.

OCS also helps Japanese businesses that are increasingly selling outside of the country. In 2023, cross-border acquiring volume—where the merchant and the cardholder’s issuing banks are located in different countries—increased more than 65%. Today, a quarter of Japan-based businesses on Stripe sell internationally. Businesses using OCS see an average 11.9% revenue increase, as more shoppers convert to buyers.

Stripe Identity to reduce fraud

Beginning today, Japanese businesses can use Stripe Identity to smoothly and securely verify users from over 110 countries, in under five seconds on average. This is Stripe’s first expansion of Identity outside of the US and UK. The launch is in response to demand from Japanese businesses for enhanced identification security to combat fraud. In 2023, industry losses in Japan from credit card fraud reached an all-time high of 54 billion yen, a 20% increase from the previous year, and nearly a five-fold increase over the past decade.