Smartpay K.K. today announced the launch of its new "Buy Now Pay Later" (BNPL) service, which combines an all-in-one payment experience and interest free payment solution, designed to solve Japanese consumer payment issues and improve merchant conversion rates.

Built out of a passion for enabling Japanese merchants to succeed in e-commerce, Smartpay aims to remove the anxiety of shopping online for Japanese credit card users with the first completely free and secure, seamless, fully automated, online payment experience.

The company is backed by several high-profile investors including SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC) and Global Founders Capital (GFC), the largest global investor in BNPL.

A series of new BNPL innovations for consumers and merchants in Japan

Japan has an e-commerce cart abandonment rate of over 80%, which is one of the highest in the world. Smartpay aims to increase the conversion rate for Japanese merchants by removing the friction that exists between cart and order completion.

Smartpay has redefined the e-commerce payment experience by addressing Japanese consumer anxiety about interest, hidden fees, sharing personal data and the time needed to fill in online forms to complete the transaction.

Smartpay is the first free of charge BNPL payment option for Japanese consumers who have credit cards. There are no sign-up fees, interest fees, settlement fees, or late charges. The payment experience is also Japan's first cross-merchant, cross-platform, and single-click checkout BNPL service, allowing consumers to checkout in as little as 10 seconds. The BNPL payment solution is simple to understand, structured on 3 equal installments over 8 weeks. This means that unlike the existing BNPL services in Japan, customers do not need to go to the convenience store to make payments or pay any bank transfer fees.

For merchants, Smartpay also addresses key cost and administration pain points by covering all payment fraud risks and managing all consumer-led chargebacks. Smartpay integration has been built to reduce merchant integration time and therefore resource cost and can be integrated onto merchant websites in one day with the highest quality SDKs and APIs. In addition, to specifically help small and medium sized merchants, Apple Pay and Google Pay are automatically integrated into the Smartpay solution. Research shows that Smartpay will improve sales conversion for e-commerce merchants by more than 10% over a 12-month period.

Built specifically for Japan

Smartpay was co-founded by Pieterjan Vandaele (ex-Paidy) and Sam Ahmed (ex-Facebook). The Smartpay team brings together 80 years of e-commerce, Fintech and payment experience specifically relevant to Japan. Brought together by a passion for the quality, precision, and creativity of Japanese merchants, as well as an understanding of the unique obstacles that Japanese merchants and consumers face with online retail, Pieter and Sam formed Smartpay to unleash the potential of e-commerce in Japan.

Pieter has held roles at Fintech companies including Stripe and Coiney. He specifically leverages the experience from his former role as Head of Engineering for Paidy, the BNPL service which was acquired by Paypal earlier this year, to identify the pain points that no BNPL service in Japan has addressed until the creation of Smartpay.

Sam is a Harvard Business School Alum and in 2018 was recognised on the Digerati APAC list of the top 50 people in the digital industry by The Drum. He was formerly Head of Payments and Fintech APAC and Japan at Facebook, held senior roles at Mastercard and Standard Chartered Bank. In 2015, Sam wrote a white paper on e-commerce in Asia/Japan where he identified that the key to success for Japanese merchants was about making the online check-out experience as smooth as possible. Smartpay addresses this through its single-click, multiplatform checkout function.

The company is led in Japan by Naoya Otsubo, a highly recognized and experienced digital and FinTech leader. As Japan Country Manager for AppsFlyer, he built the team and the business from scratch and expanded the market share from 0 to 51%. As Director of Mid Market, APAC at Critero, Naoya created and managed teams in Japan, Korea and Australia, and at Yahoo! Inc. (Overture) and Yahoo! Japan he led multiple teams including Online Sales, Key Accounts and Global Sales.

Key investors

SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC) has invested in Smartpay as its BNPL service of choice in Japan. As a leading banking institution in Japan, the investment by SMBC-VC enables Smartpay to help Japanese merchants succeed with e-commerce.

Global Founders Capital (GFC) are the global leaders in BNPL and consumer finance investments and provides Smartpay with deep operational support to build to scale. Smartpay and GFC will work together to bring global BNPL best practices to Japan in order to accelerate the growth and success of e-commerce across the country.

Accelerating e-commerce in Japan

Naoya Otsubo, Smartpay Country Manager explains that "Smartpay recognizes the anxiety of merchants in Japan will cause some retailers to potentially invest in the wrong areas. We believe that we can help merchants increase online sales conversions and revenue by 10 to 20% without having to invest in costly advertising or infrastructure builds."

Co-founder Sam Ahmed added that "Our team has been passionate about Japan and its e-commerce journey for many years. We are seeing more consumers enjoying purchasing online and we'd like to help connect these consumers to the merchants in a more efficient manner."

Co-founder Pieterjan Vandaele said that "We are extremely proud to have built an exciting and unique service specifically for Japan. For consumers, we focused on taking away the worries around fees, providing simplicity for signups, and delivering the smoothest user experience. For merchants, we provide an accessible service that focuses on revenue growth."

Smartpay's purpose is to enable all Japanese merchants to succeed in e-commerce. From December 2021, Smartpay will be providing a free e-commerce training for 10,000 Japanese merchants to learn e-commerce best practices for onsite conversion, attracting new customers and revenue expansion.

• Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority with affordability checks - unlike many unregulated ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ offers 
• Easy and flexible payments – with just one amount to pay each month across multiple plans, with an app to track and manage payments
• Credit account helps customers to build credit rating and to use their account for multiple purchases, available across retailers that offer Newpay

NewDay, one of the UK’s largest providers of consumer credit, has launched Newpay, an instant access digital credit account designed to help consumers spread the cost of bigger online baskets and purchases. Newpay fully integrates into the retailer’s checkout experience, offering seamless access to credit for customers.

Newpay offers customers a credit limit of up to £5,000, which can be used across a range of online retailers. The digital credit account allows customers to break down the cost of online purchases into monthly payments, with just one amount to pay each month, even if an individual has multiple payment plans. There is just one account for all purchases, allowing customers to see their Newpay purchases in one place, either online via the Newpay website or in the Newpay App.

A credit product regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Newpay uses the same standard of affordability checks as NewDay’s other consumer credit products, with an individual’s ability to repay considered at the application stage. Checking eligibility for Newpay does not impact an individual’s credit profile, with a quick no risk check carried out. If a customer passes the eligibly check and decides to apply for a Newpay account, a more detailed check, which will show on their credit file, will be conducted.

As a credit account, Newpay can help customers to build their credit score over time, provided that they remain within their credit limit and make their monthly payments on time. This is a key differentiator for customers, unlike some unregulated Buy Now Pay Later products in the market.

Newpay customers only need to be approved once and receive a credit limit that will apply to all current and future purchases made via their Newpay account, rather than have each transaction approved individually. Customers can use their Newpay account for multiple purchases, provided that the outstanding balance across all purchases remains within their credit limit.

Newpay has been built with flexibility in mind. It allows for a range of payment plans - from monthly instalments with fixed payments over periods from six to 24 months on purchases over £100 at the customer’s standard rate of interest, monthly instalments with fixed payments from six to 24 months at 0% interest with selected retailers, or revolving credit. Customers simply pick which of these payment plans they want when making their purchase. The Newpay App allows customers to track and manage payments easily.

Ian Corfield, Chief Commercial Officer at NewDay, said: “We believe Newpay can help meet customer needs in the evolving e-commerce space. Many unregulated Buy Now Pay Later providers offer products that require customers to make multiple payments across those plans each month. With Newpay, we wanted to offer customers the ability to choose payment plans and timeframes that suit them, with customers paying just one amount each month, even if they have multiple payment plans in place across their purchases.

“As a consumer credit company, we believe our regulated offering and expertise in understanding and assessing an individual’s credit profile positions us to offer customers meaningful products. Newpay helps people to move forward with credit, provided that they remain within their credit limit and make their monthly payments on time.”

Smart Engines scientists have developed multi-code and continuous session scanning in anticipation of a challenging epidemiological situation worldwide. In particular, now the mandatory Covid-19 QR code scanning required for entering certain premises in some countries is greatly simplified for staff and customers. If identity confirmation is necessary for the QR code, the Smart Engines solution also allows ID scanning.

Smart Engines developed a new version of a barcode scanning system to read 1D and 2D barcodes data suitable for a wide range of bills, receipts, taxes, and AAMVA-compliant IDs. The new version can scan barcodes when several codes are present in the frame simultaneously and when it is necessary to read these codes one by one in a video stream in real-time. The technology improves work with QR, AZTEC, and other codes for quick payment of utility bills, making tax and budget payments, optimizing and automating warehouse logistics, and performing marking control using a mobile application.

Watch how it works 

The Smart Code Engine software delivers a next-level user experience when scanning any barcode. The user does not need to focus on the barcode to extract data — everything is performed automatically: search, type detection, and reading. The barcode scanner is also resistant to poor lighting conditions, camera angles, and geometrical distortions and can accurately scan damaged and inverted barcodes.

Using Smart Engines Green AI-empowered private GreenOCR® technology allows extracting barcode data on devices with limited processing power: from cheap smartphones (Android, iOS) to tablets, thin clients, data collection terminals, and mobile terminals, etc. The barcode scanning is performed automatically, in real-time, and on-device — from video or a single photo without data transmission. Smart Engines is a GDPR, CCPA, PCI DSS compliant solution.

Tribe’s API-led approach reduced OnerWay’s implementation time to under three months 

Payment technology provider, Tribe Payments, today announced it has been chosen by payment platform OnerWay- part of the Ronghan Group - to provide acquirer processing services including its proprietary 3D Secure product. Tribe will process Mastercard and Visa payments in the UK and EEA for OnerWay’s cross-border e-commerce merchants as part of OnerWay’s growth plans to build a holistic and progressive payment ecosystem.

The e-commerce landscape is constantly evolving, and consumers no longer stick to a single channel, or even a single country, when buying goods and services online. OnerWay, which holds a UK EMI license regulated by the FCA, is a specialist cross-border payment provider and acquirer that connects merchants with international consumers. The company needed an acquirer processing solution with multi-currency BIN support that could be deployed at speed to fuel its rapid global expansion. 

Tribe’s core platform, ISAAC, will process cross-border, omnichannel payments for OnerWay with multi-currency BIN support and was implemented in less than three months from contract signing. All processed payments will be authenticated by Tribe’s proprietary 3D Secure product which has additional controls and customisation options for acquirers. Using the TribeHub dashboard, OnerWay will also receive instant notifications, view live transactions, and be able to interrogate real-time data analytics to gain customer insights and actionable intelligence.

The partnership is a key part of OnerWay’s plans to build an unrivalled cross-border payment services proposition based on its own principal membership of the major international payment schemes including its recent Mastercard acquiring membership in the UK. OnerWay’s payment platform gives merchants access to over 30 different payment methods globally including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Klarna.

“Tribe has helped us progress quickly with our expansion projects in the UK as a direct acquirer of card schemes,” said Kyle Paisley, Strategic Partnership Manager at OnerWay. “We look forward to building upon our partnership and exploring further opportunities including issuing and supporting global merchants together.”

“OnerWay needed an acquirer processing solution that could be implemented at speed to support its expansion across the UK and Europe,” said Alex Reddish, Managing Director at Tribe Payments. “Our API-driven approach to payments technology meant we were uniquely placed to help OnerWay access a wealth of functionality and innovative technology in just two months. Furthermore, as OnerWay seeks to expand the range of services it offers, it will be able to take advantage of our modular platform to add, remove and customise new payment products and capabilities at speed without compromising scale or resilience.”

New proposition opens up opportunities in the fast-growing Indian digital commerce space for international businesses

Worldline, a global leader in the payments and transactional services industry, is transforming the way e-commerce businesses can do business in India, a country that has experienced rapid digital transformation and is primed for extended growth. Worldline is launching a new full-service cross-border solution designed to fit the needs of international online businesses who are looking to expand or optimise their e-commerce in India but don’t have a local payments infrastructure. The solution will be available early next year.

Against a backdrop of rapidly growing GDP, consumer spending and digital adoption, undeniably India is an economic powerhouse and one of the most interesting markets for international expansion.  With reports suggesting the nation’s FinTech sector saw investments tallying $2bn in the first half of 2021, it is also predicted that consumer spending will double by 2025 and e-commerce penetration will increase fivefold, creating an ideal environment for exponential growth. Worldline is responding to this trend and offering an innovative full-service payment solution for global online businesses within digital, education, gaming & media and travel. 

By introducing a suite of payment methods to global and cross-border merchants that cater fully to the needs and preferences of Indian consumers, Worldline will enable businesses to gain better access to one of the world’s most dynamic digital commerce markets. The solution suite enables clients to:

• Process in India without requirement for a local entity. Setting up a local entity in India can be time consuming and requires knowledge of local regulation
• Provide access to mandated and popular local payment methods namely: RuPay, UPI and UPI QR and Netbanking. Only a quarter of online spending in India is estimated to go through international card networks.
• Merchants can list their services in Indian Rupee (INR) to consumers via these payment methods, which is critical for conversion and customer experience.
• Repatriate funds, specifically enabling cross-border settlement of funds in the merchant’s preferred currency such as EUR, USD or GBP.
• Manage data within boundaries of Indian compliance regulations, such as privacy.

Ramesh Narasimhan, Head of Digital Commerce India at Worldline, said: “India is a crucial market for Worldline alongside other BRIC economies. Accessing this growth opportunity requires deep understanding of a diverse, dynamic economy and culture, as well as the latest regulatory and payments environment. India is one of the most interesting markets for global online businesses to expand into and Worldline is best placed to make that digital transformation opportunity as seamless as possible.” 

Worldline’s solution is powered by almost 2000 employees operating across India with a deep understanding of the Indian financial ecosystem and local consumer behaviour. Expanding in India is part of Worldline’s strategic approach to help businesses target high growth markets around the world, including BRIC markets. These unique domestic e-commerce ecosystems often have barriers to entry which demand specific solutions tailored to local consumer preferences and regulation. Worldline is progressively delivering solutions for high growth markets to further accelerate cross-border growth for its customers.

 London-based global payments service provider SumUp (www.sumup.co.uk) today announces the launch of a new Business Account solution for SumUp merchants in the UK, and almost a dozen European markets. The Business Account from SumUp is central to the evolution of the company’s core package, as it looks to expand its merchant offering. Upon launch, the solution will enable over 130,000 merchants to get paid into their business account. 

In 2021, SumUp has raised €750m to fuel international expansion and growth and, more recently, acquired US customer loyalty and SME marketing company Fivestars for over €270m. As the funding is used to broaden SumUp’s global reach and strengthen its footing in key markets, the Business Account is being launched to the benefit of merchants in the UK.

With SumUp Business Account, UK-based merchants will now be able to combine a SumUp issued account number and sort code with other SumUp services (such as the Card Reader, Invoicing, SumUp Card, payment links, and more) to streamline their business operations in a way that reduces the reliance on a high street bank.

SumUp merchants can now direct money from their sales to the SumUp Business Account the very next day, even on weekends or public holidays, helping to improve liquidity flow and providing a more immediate access to funds. Merchants will consequently be able to transfer funds to suppliers (can make instant bank transfers in their local currency), to pay rent, or use the SumUp Card to pay in-store, online, or withdraw cash from an ATM.

The SumUp Business Account is also easily accessible to busy SMEs, either on desktop or on the go with a smartphone via the SumUp App, where merchants can receive notifications about incoming and outgoing funds - all while benefiting from SumUp’s efficient and effective customer support. The SumUp Business Account is yet another product that SumUp adds to its growing product suite made to give small businesses a complete toolkit for running their business. 

Dimitri Gugunava, VP Banking at SumUp comments: “The SumUp Business Account is the latest solution that we’ve brought forward to help our UK-based merchants improve the daily running of their businesses.

“We are proud to be able to provide our British merchants with new ways of managing their funds, and the SumUp Business Account will offer a seamless experience to merchants with fast-paced operations managing their businesses on the go.”

The signup process to the SumUp Business Account takes just a few minutes, and allows merchants to separate business finances from their personal ones and manage it for free. SumUp Business Account is free from any signup, monthly or transfer costs.

 LPA, the capital markets technology and advisory firm, today announced that it has enhanced its ESG consulting services through a partnership with Evercity, a digital platform for impact measurement and investment launched at the UN Global Climate Innovation Lab during COP26 in Glasgow.

Full traceability and a high degree of technical security are key drivers for financial markets as the industry works towards attaining the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To enable that, Evercity developed a blockchain-based platform to streamline the end-to-end sustainable finance process. The platform makes it easier, cheaper and more transparent to issue green and sustainability-linked bonds. It also helps banks, impact funds and companies to assess EU Taxonomy alignment, monitor and track their sustainable investments.

Evercity is a founding member and leader of the finance working group in the Climate Chain Coalition, a global association co-chaired by the UNFCCC, working to advance blockchain and related digital solutions to help mobilise climate finance and enhance measurement, reporting and verification of climate actions.

As a leader in European RegTech, LPA monitors the numerous amendments of the EU Action Plan and, together with Evercity, will help financial institutions keep abreast of regulatory changes, implement new requirements and track progress against ESG goals.

Hans-Joachim Lefeld, Partner ESG Consulting at LPA stated “As a leading capital markets technology and consulting firm, we are continuously developing our offering to meet the needs of our clients. As pressure for sustainability rises, financial institutions are recognising the need to move towards a low-carbon economy and have started to adjust their business models to fully embrace ESG requirements. Together with Evercity we are confident we can provide financial institutions with the tools necessary to achieve their goals.”

Alexey Shadrin, CEO of Evercity said “Green finance is growing at an unprecedented speed. However, we still need to mobilize more of it and ensure that there is no greenwashing. Fraudulent activities are not moving the industry closer to achieving the goals set in the UN Agenda 2030, but blockchain offers a solution to this problem by creating a golden source of truth for everyone. We are excited about the collaboration with LPA and it’s our belief that together we will be able to expand our reach in the German and EU market.”