Buy now, pay later. Rakuten brings credit card business to Taiwan

Shoppers in Taiwan, get ready to make space in your wallets. Rakuten Card, the credit card offering from Japanese ecommerce conglomerate Rakuten, has arrived in Taiwan. The service complements Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan, the localized online shopping site which has been operating since 2008.

The rollout comes just over six months after Rakuten gained approval from local regulators to establish the business. Users get one percent of each purchase in the form of Rakuten SuperPoints, but purchases made on Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan will net two percent worth of the loyalty points. The points can be used as currency and applied toward future purchases on other Rakuten services.

Rakuten has been seeking that sort of synergy outside of Japan for years, but its leading “sub-brands” – Travel, Card, Securities, Bank – have mostly remained trapped inside Japan. On the financial services side there are obvious regulatory considerations, but even Rakuten Travel, which has an international site, has made little headway against market leaders like Expedia.

Domestically, Rakuten’s internet finance wing (which includes Rakuten Card) is a major pillar in the company. In the most recently announced quarterly numbers, internet finance brought in JPY 60.7 billion (US$517 million), good for about 41 percent of the company’s revenue worldwide. Not even the core ecommerce and travel business can match that – they contributed 32 percent.

Financial services is a source of strength for Rakuten, and that know-how is now being brought overseas for the first time. The closest Rakuten has come to establishing an overseas credit card so far is a rewards card in America via a tie-up with the First National Bank of Omaha.

Rakuten has certainly expanded far and wide overseas, but its vaunted ecosystem has not. The entrance of the credit card service into Taiwan will likely be the first of many similar moves.

See: Rakuten Taiwan Gets Visual, Lets You Find Fashion From Photos