PayPay’s shares surged in a highly anticipated Nasdaq debut on Thursday (March 12), opening roughly 19% above their offer price and valuing the Japanese payments app at US$12.7 billion.
The SoftBank-backed company’s stock opened at US$19, compared with the US$16 offer price, after it and a SoftBank-controlled investment fund sold about 55 million American Depositary Shares below the marketed range of US$17 to US$20, raising roughly US$880 million.
The offering proceeded despite global market jitters caused by the conflict in the Middle East.
Reuters reported that the US IPO market has also struggled in recent weeks, prompting some companies to delay listings.
Jointly formed by SoftBank and Yahoo Japan in 2018, PayPay initially spurred adoption by waiving transaction fees for small and medium-sized merchants for up to three years.
The Tokyo-based firm has since achieved US$100 billion in gross merchandise volume and grown to around 72 million registered users by the end of 2025.
CEO Ichiro Nakayama told Reuters,
“Payments is the foundation of our business, and we’re going to transform into a financial services platform post IPO.”
The fintech has expanded beyond cashless payments into credit, banking, securities and insurance, aiming to become an all-in-one digital finance platform.
Last month, it announced a partnership with Visa to support expansion into the US.
Analysts note that PayPay’s dominance in its domestic market provides resilience against geopolitical and market uncertainties, while Japan’s lag in payments technology offers significant growth potential.
PayPay is the first US listing of a SoftBank majority investment since Arm’s blockbuster 2023 IPO, marking another step in SoftBank’s broader push into AI, including its “all-in” bet on OpenAI.
Featured image credit: PayPay
