PayPal, the US online payments company, has agreed to acquire Paidy, a Tokyo-based “buy now, pay later” group, for ¥300bn ($2.7bn) in the latest shake-up in the industry.
The deal announced late on Tuesday, which will be paid for principally in cash, deepens PayPal’s push into the crowded BNPL sector, in which consumers spread the cost of goods over a small number of payments, typically without interest and often without requiring a credit check.
Last month, Square, the payments company led by Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, acquired BNPL group Afterpay for $29bn, in the largest takeover in Australian history.
Shares in San Francisco-based Affirm, another BNPL company, soared last month after it announced a partnership with Amazon allowing shoppers who spend more than $50 to make payments in monthly instalments.
Paidy, founded in 2008, is one of Japan’s few “unicorns”, or start-ups worth more than $1bn. The company launched the country’s first zero-interest post-payment service last year.
While the global BNPL market has exploded in popularity owing to the pandemic-driven boom in online shopping, the trend is only starting to catch on in Japan, where consumers still depend heavily on cash payments.
Paidy allows its 6m registered users to split the cost of goods into three equal instalments with no interest. Users can pay off their balance using cash at convenience stores or bank transfers.
According to Yano Research Institute, the volume of transactions made through post-payment services in Japan is expected to more than double from an estimated ¥882bn in fiscal 2020 to ¥1.88tn by fiscal 2024.
Paidy was valued at $1.3bn when it raised $120m in March, and was expected to list its shares in Tokyo later this year. It has been backed by trading house Itochu, Goldman Sachs and Soros Capital Management along with PayPal.
Russell Cummer, the Japanese fintech’s founder, recently told the Financial Times that a public listing “made sense” — though no firm timetable had been established. Instead, the company is now expected to become part of PayPal by the fourth quarter of this year.
“Paidy pioneered ‘buy now, pay later’ solutions tailored to the Japanese market and quickly grew to become the leading service, developing a sizeable two-sided platform of consumers and merchants,” said Peter Kenevan, PayPal’s vice-president and head of business in Japan.
“Combining Paidy’s brand, capabilities and talented team with PayPal’s expertise, resources and global scale will create a strong foundation to accelerate our momentum in this strategically important market.”
PayPal said Paidy would “continue to operating its existing business, maintain its brand and support a wide variety of consumer wallets and marketplaces”. Cummer and Riku Sugie, Paidy’s president and chief executive, will continue to lead the company, according to a statement.
“Paidy is just at the beginning of our journey and joining PayPal will accelerate our plans to expand beyond ecommerce and build unique services as the new shopping standard,” said Sugie. “PayPal was a founding partner for Paidy Link and we look forward to working together to create even more value.”
The acquisition comes as PayPal rolls out its broader strategy to become a “super app” — incorporating payments, cryptocurrency investments and savings — drawing inspiration from under-one-roof Chinese apps such as WeChat.