SoftBank’s PayPay surges ahead in Japan’s digital payments race

TOKYO (Reuters) – For six decades, shoppers at Mikawaya, a rice dealer in eastern Tokyo, paid in cash – until sales staff from payments app PayPay swept through the low-lying district, persuading the store to give their product a try.

With customers clamouring to use the service and nearby stores signing up, PayPay’s offer of free installation and no handling fees was too good to refuse, the store’s owners say.

“We thought there could be no harm in trying it out,” said Moeko Suzuki, who helps her father run the store, standing amid sacks of rice. “The number of young people has really increased.”

Owned by deep-pocketed SoftBank, PayPay has deployed a shoe-leather sales force of thousands to target restaurants, drugstores and supermarkets,