Worldline, a global leader in payment services, and Casio Computer announce they have agreed on a strategic business alliance to facilitate card payments and cashless shopping in Japan, a market with huge potential to overturn its conservative retail landscape.

The strategic business alliance between Worldline and Casio, which went live recently in Japan, aims to revolutionise the currently rather cumbersome payment acceptance ecosystem. The setup also includes Vesca, a leading local provider of payment solutions and network service provider (NSP), and is targeted to the mass market, mainly SME merchants across Japan. In this unique partnership, Worldline provides transaction processing and leverages the footprint, scale and technology of its global payment processing facilities, while Casio is the trusted and reliable front-end for merchants, having led the cash register market in Japan for 19 years, with cashless services part of its offering; and Vesca is the technical enabler that acts as the acceptance layer in Japan.

This arrangement benefits merchants in Japan, particularly SMEs and small chains, and their customers. Credit card acceptance will no longer be a strain for these retail and service businesses who will benefit from speedy onboarding and more competitive costs while keeping Casio as their trusted single point of contact for all check-out topics. Therefore, Worldline, Casio and Vesca will be able to successfully address the challenges posed by the Japanese ecosystem when it comes to card payments – cash-dominated consumer behaviours and cumbersome lengthy onboarding processes.

As a team, the three companies are ideally placed to address the requirements of the Japanese market and its strong and distinctive local characteristics. For example, a strong relationship typically binds together local merchants and their electronic cash register (ECR) provider or integrator, which in Japan, gatekeeps the checkout and payments process.

Vincent Roland, Head of Merchant Services at Worldline, said: “We are extremely proud to be working with a prestigious brand such as Casio and we are confident this partnership is the right choice for our presence in the Japanese market. Our offering will booster card payments in a market with huge potential.”

Shigenori Fujii, Senior General Manager, System Business Unit at Casio, added: “Worldline is the leading payments solutions provider in Europe, and it only made sense to collaborate with them as we aim to enlarge our offering for checkout payments and cashless services in Japan. Their professionalism and expertise are unparalleled. We want to develop this partnership further.”

Building relationships with key local actors and delivering offerings using the latest payment technology are two core components of Worldline’s growth strategy when it comes to penetrating new markets. In this instance, the partnership brings together Worldline and Casio, both leading and highly respected operators in their respective fields, with shared values and objectives.