According to Finance Feeds, the initiative comes as Google doesn't want to depend on third parties for payments and other related services, and this way it would be able to offer these services internally. Therefore, Google and its investment partners are looking to acquire all the company shares of Pring, which is currently owned by Mizuho Bank, for USD 180 million to USD 200 million.
Although Google has its own Google Pay services in Japan, it has to depend on other companies for processing credit card and pre-paid card transactions, which increase cost and also reduces control and reliability. Pring currently operates both on mobile as well as computers as it offers payments, cash transfers, and other related services to its client base.
Moreover, the company has also onboarded over 400 merchants on its platform who use it for making payments to customers and other merchants as well. Consequently, thanks to the acquisition, Google will be enabled to take over the licenses that Pring has, Finance Feeds reported.
Overall, the Japanese cashless transactions market is not fully developed as yet. The penetration of cashless payments is still only 30% which means that there is a lot of space for growth. Google might plan to expand in markets where there is still space to go regarding cashless payments, and Japan seems to be a good choice as the technology in the payments space is still far behind when compared to the rest of the world.
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