Tap-to-pay in Japan, without the infrastructure project
Japan is the final tier-1 APAC economy on the roadmap and the most scheme-complex market we will ship, targeted for general availability in Q3 2027. JCB J/Speedy and CAFIS integration are the largest unknowns, so we budget two full quarters of scheme validation for Japan alone.
When it lands, the Japan deployment will cover CAFIS, J-Debit, and the wallets that define Japanese retail — Suica, Rakuten Pay, and PayPay — under a Financial Services Agency Payment Services Act registration with in-country settlement. As elsewhere, a platform integrates once and inherits the full local stack.
The most scheme-complex market on the roadmap — JCB J/Speedy and CAFIS integration budgeted across two quarters of validation.
Local payment rails we support in Japan
Cards alone do not win a market in Asia. Tapped exposes the domestic rails Japan merchants actually expect, through the same SDK as card acceptance:
| Rail | What it covers |
|---|---|
| CAFIS | Japan's dominant payment-processing network connecting card issuers, acquirers, and merchants. |
| J-Debit | The bank-card debit scheme run by the Japanese banking sector. |
| Suica | The contactless transit and retail IC card, ubiquitous in daily spend. |
| Rakuten Pay | Major QR and wallet from the Rakuten ecosystem. |
| PayPay | Japan's most-used QR wallet by transaction volume. |
Card schemes certified for Japan
Every kernel we ship for Japan is production-certified at the scheme layer before the market goes live — Visa VCPS / L3 EMV Contactless, Mastercard M/Chip and PayPass, JCB J/Speedy, and UnionPay UPI QuickPass as applicable. Certified schemes here:
- Visa
- Mastercard
- JCB
- UnionPay
- Amex
Kernel renewals and updates ship as a platform release — you inherit them without re-certifying.
Regulation & licensing in Japan
Tapped operates in Japan under Financial Services Agency (FSA) supervision, with a published licensing posture of Payment Services Act registration. Your merchants onboard as sub-merchants beneath that arrangement, so you do not need to hold your own payment licence to go live.
We are PCI-DSS Level 1 attested annually, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001 certified, with regional data controls applied where the regulator or sponsor bank requires it.
Settlement & payouts
Standard settlement in Japan is T+1 · in-country, paid out in Japanese yen (JPY). The blended processing rate is 3.45% — full per-market rates are on the pricing page, with nothing to negotiate.
Who builds on Tapped in Japan
Tapped is built for vertical SaaS platforms that want to embed payment acceptance into their own product — not for individual merchants. Common deployments in Japan:
- Restaurant & F&B platforms — tap at the table or counter on the staff's own phone.
- Salon, wellness & booking platforms — collect payment inside the booking flow.
- Field-services & delivery platforms — accept payment at the customer's door on a rider device.
- Healthcare & clinic platforms — copay and consultation collections.
- Hospitality & PMS platforms — folio checkout at the front desk.