Kakao Pay and Japan's PayPay announced on 25 September 2025 that PayPay users can now pay at more than two million offline merchants across South Korea using the PayPay application, without needing to obtain a Korean bank account, a local payment card, or a domestic digital wallet. The launch makes South Korea the first market outside Japan where PayPay has extended its acceptance network. PayPay has more than 70 million registered users in Japan.
The arrangement is structured as a three-way collaboration involving Kakao Pay, PayPay, and Alipay+, the cross-border payments platform operated by Ant Group. Alipay+ provides the technical interoperability infrastructure that allows PayPay's QR codes to be processed within Kakao Pay's Korean merchant acceptance network.
MERCHANT ACCEPTANCE
Merchants do not need to install separate hardware or sign individual agreements with PayPay; access is delivered through the existing Kakao Pay infrastructure they already use.