Kakao Pay and Japan’s PayPay have expanded their partnership, allowing PayPay users to make offline payments at more than two million merchants across South Korea.

According to The Korea Herald, the South Korean online payments company said on Thursday (September 25) that PayPay’s network has been connected to Korean offline stores, enabling Japanese visitors to pay as they would at home.

This marks PayPay’s first overseas expansion.

The company is one of Japan’s largest cashless payment providers, with over 70 million registered users.

Japan is South Korea’s second-largest source of visitors after China, with 1.92 million Japanese tourists travelling to the country between January and July.

The service was enabled through a three-way partnership between Kakao Pay, PayPay and Alipay+.

It follows Kakao Pay’s outbound expansion in November 2024, when Korean tourists were given the ability to use Kakao Pay for offline payments in Japan via PayPay’s local network.

Kakao Pay, the fintech arm of IT group Kakao, is currently the only Korean company linking foreign payment networks to offline merchants in Korea.

Before PayPay, it connected Vietnam’s ZaloPay, Pakistan’s NayaPay and Uzbekistan’s Humo to Korean stores.

Earlier this week, it also introduced near-field communication (NFC) payments, broadening outbound payment options for Korean users in the United States, Europe and Oceania.

“With Japan’s No. 1 mobile payment provider PayPay launching in Korea, the largest number of people in the two countries can now use their home payment services when travelling,”

Kakao Pay said.

“This milestone reflects the strong partnership Kakao Pay has built since making its first overseas expansion in Japan in 2019, and we will keep enhancing cross-border convenience and benefits for travellers between the two countries.”

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Hong Kong, based on image by freepik