TOKYO, Nov 16, 2021 - (JCN Newswire) - 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.
About Smartpay
Smartpay understands the uncertainty and anxiety people face in the new world of digital commerce. Our all-in-one
payment experience and interest-free BNPL solution is designed to solve Japanese consumer payment issues and improve
merchant conversion rates. By eliminating interest, hidden fees, and the anxiety consumers feel about sharing their
data, our service provides the smoothest user experience for online payments. For merchants, we deliver a system
solution that focuses on growing their revenue. We are changing the standard of payments, shopping, and consumer finance
solutions. For consumers, for businesses, for both. For more information, please visit: https://smartpay.co/about/