Japan's Softbank and PayPal have jointly formed a new $25 million (€19 million) digital payments joint venture.
The venture, PayPal Japan, will offer digital wallet services for online, mobile and offline transactions. Softbank and PayPal will each invest $12.5 million in the business, and will elect three directors apiece to the company board.
In advance of the formation of the joint venture, the companies have collaborated to launch mobile payment service PayPal Here in the Japanese market. Japan is the fifth country to receive the service after the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.
PayPal Here aims to allow small businesses to accept payments using a mobile app or an encrypted card reader. PayPal and Softbank will offer the app for free, and charge around 1,200 yen (€11.63) for the card reader. Merchant fees will be a flat 5% of a transaction.
The e-commerce partnership was announced days after MasterCard announced its own mobile wallet service, PayPass Wallet.