PayPay, Japan's largest mobile payment platform and a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, has officially filed for an IPO with U.S. regulators, marking a key step towards its U.S. listing. The fintech company, which faced delays due to the U.S. government shutdown, is now pushing forward with its IPO, with markets expecting a valuation approaching $20 billion, potentially making it the largest U.S. IPO in Japanese history.
After delays, SoftBank's PayPay has restarted its IPO process in the United States.
PayPay, backed by SoftBank Group, publicly filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States this week, planning to list on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol "PAYP". The deal was originally scheduled to proceed last December, but the US government shutdown delayed regulatory scrutiny, thus postponing the listing.
If this application is successfully completed, it will be the most significant Japanese company listing in the US since Arm Holdings, a semiconductor design company owned by SoftBank, successfully went public in 2023.
PayPay has not yet disclosed the size of its offering or the price range. Reuters speculates that the IPO may raise more than $2 billion, valuing the company at 3 trillion yen (approximately $19.6 billion). The lead underwriters include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho, and Morgan Stanley.
With revenue growing nearly tenfold, it is expected to inject vitality into the US IPO market.
In terms of operational performance, PayPay's revenue reached 278.5 billion yen and net profit reached 103.3 billion yen in the nine months ending December last year, a significant increase compared to 29 billion yen in the same period of the previous year. Regarding user base, the number of registered users has accumulated to approximately 72 million.
Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, points out that with both revenue growth and profit margins improving simultaneously, PayPay is positioned to command a premium valuation.
The US IPO market desperately needs a victory, and a strong debut from a large company like this could inject momentum into the recently lackluster market.
With Binance Japan as its partner, PayPay is expanding from mobile payments to a digital financial ecosystem.
Founded in 2018 by SoftBank and Yahoo Japan, PayPay initially focused on mobile payments as its core business. Through a reward mechanism, it encouraged Japanese consumers to shift from cash to digital payments. Within seven years, it rapidly expanded and became one of the most popular payment platforms in the country.
Currently, PayPay's business scope has expanded from payments to credit, banking, securities, and insurance, and last yearit acquired a 40% stake in Binance Japan, positioning itself to integrate cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. With SoftBank continuously monetizing assets and investing in artificial intelligence in recent years, PayPay's IPO is seen as a crucial part of its capital allocation strategy.
This article, which discusses SoftBank's payment giant PayPay's application for a US IPO with a valuation of up to $20 billion, first appeared on ABMedia .
