November 9, 2026, 9:35 a.m. (JST)
[Japan] Stripe, marking its 10th anniversary in the Japanese market, held “Stripe Tour Tokyo 2026” on September 30, 2026.The event featured presentations on payment trends in the AI era, the cutting edge of fintech, and Stripe’s latest initiatives. In addition to its efforts in agent-based commerce, Stripe announced the launch of “Stripe Managed Payments” to support cross-border sales, the expansion of QR Code Payment support, and the launch of “Stripe Capital” to help businesses raise capital—all part of its efforts to strengthen services for domestic Merchants.
Over 50,000 businesses use
Stripe Focus on AI Agent Adoption
Approximately 1,000 people attended Stripe Tour. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Stripe’s launch in Japan. According to John Collison, Stripe’s co-founder and president, more than 150,000 businesses currently use Stripe.Furthermore, the total value of payments processed on Stripe amounts to 300 trillion yen, accounting for 1.6% of global GDP. In Japan, companies such as Toyota, Sony, Rakuten, Fujifilm, Mercari, DeNA, and sakana.ai use the service.
According to Collison, AI is driving the advancement of the digital economy and serving as a tailwind that accelerates the pace of corporate growth. He cited the advent of agent-based commerce, the transformation of software revenue models, and economic renewal as key factors.
According to Collison, the number of unique consumers per day using “Link,” Stripe’s one-click rapid online payment feature, has increased significantly. Additionally, on August 19, 2026, Stripe acquired OpenRouter, a provider of AI model gateways and other services. The number of new businesses launched on Stripe each month is also on a steady upward trend.The number of new apps registered on the App Store has also skyrocketed.
The number of companies founded using “Stripe Atlas,” Stripe’s startup incorporation service, tripled compared to the same period last year. The percentage of Stripe-using companies where international sales account for more than half of their total revenue has risen from 11.6% to 22.9%.
Collaborating
with Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, and Google Expanding the Agent-Driven Commerce Ecosystem
Regarding agentic commerce, 65% of major e-commerce companies responded that it will have a fundamental impact on their future business models. Additionally, 38% of Japanese AI companies—including solopreneurs—had adopted Stripe by 2025.Last year, approximately 45,000 companies began using the service. The value of cross-border payments processed by Stripe users in Japan in 2025 increased by 43% year-over-year.
Kevin Miller, Head of Payments, Risk, Support, and Global at Stripe, presented on initiatives centered on agent-driven discovery, selection, and purchase. In addition to Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, the company announced a strategic partnership with Google in May 2026.
Stripe Projects allows users to provision and manage third-party services—such as databases, hosting providers, and authentication tools—and handle credentials and billing from a single location using the Stripe CLI.The Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) is an open protocol designed to enable AI agents to make payments autonomously and programmatically without human intervention.The Merchant of Record (MoR) plays a critical role across four phases: “Discovery,” “Checkout,” “Payment,” and “Fraud Prevention.”Companies such as WIX, Fanatics, Best Buy, and Mercari are participating in Stripe’s agent-driven commerce Ecosystem.
Stripe offers 125 payment methods, including Japan’s PayPay. In addition to these, Stripe has begun offering early access support for Japan’s major QR Code Payment services: d Pay, au PAY, Rakuten Pay, Merpay, and AEON Pay. This enables Stripe to centrally accept payments from all major Japanese QR Code Payment services.
Gamma, an AI-powered platform for generating documents and websites, has over 70 million users worldwide and has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).When Gamma introduced UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments to the Indian market via Stripe, its sales in India surged by 22% within the same month.
Additionally, the number of Link users mentioned earlier has surpassed 300 million, and the conversion rate for repeat customers reportedly improved by 5%.
The new Checkout Studio features centralized configuration and optimization of payment flows. The visual builder supports over 125 payment methods used across various regions, built-in A/B testing, and Link.
Supporting
Japanese Companies’ Global Expansion Stripe Managed Payments Aims to Improve Average Authorization Rates
Stripe supports the global expansion of Japanese companies. Through Stripe Managed Payments, it offers an account manager service that provides robust support for overseas expansion.Companies selling digital products can provide payment experiences optimized for each region and expand their business globally into 195 markets while entrusting Stripe with tax collection and remittance, fraud and risk management, and chargeback handling.Typically, the average authorization rate for cross-border e-commerce is about 3% lower than for domestic payments; however, by automatically routing transaction processing to Stripe’s local subsidiaries in specific customer markets, Stripe helps improve cross-border payment performance.
Adaptive Pricing is a feature that automatically displays prices in the local currency and processes payments in real time for international buyers. As a result, the average authorization success rate increased by 5%, and checkout conversion rates improved by 4.7%.
The company offers the Stripe Reader for in-person transactions and has begun full-scale rollout of the “Stripe Reader T600” in the Japanese market. The device retails for 52,000 yen (tax included).The T600 features a new customer-facing display, enabling merchants to present information to customers alongside in-store payments. It supports custom apps, allowing merchants to build optimal customer experiences tailored to their specific needs—such as enrolling customers in loyalty programs or making upsell recommendations.
Furthermore, Stripe has launched “Tap to Pay on Android” in Japan. This service allows merchants to centrally manage both online and in-person payment data on Stripe. Merchants with NFC-enabled Android devices can accept in-person Contactless Payment without needing to add a dedicated card reader or payment terminal.
Stripe has also begun offering a highly transparent “cost-plus” pricing structure (a cost-recovery model) in the Japanese market. This pricing model separately lists the underlying card processing fees and Stripe’s Payment Processing Fees.Furthermore, since network fees can be viewed on a per-transaction basis, this has increased transparency regarding the breakdown of the Payment Processing Fee—a detail that was previously difficult to discern under flat-rate or uniform pricing structures.
According to Nicole Paglia, Head of Global Payments and Risk Product Marketing at Stripe, the amount of fraud transactions blocked for Japanese companies totaled 117 billion yen.Furthermore, while one in six new registrations with AI companies involves the misuse of multiple accounts, the company is now offering new anti-fraud measures specifically designed to address this issue.
Of the accounts detected by Stripe, 80% had been overlooked by existing providers. Furthermore, if countermeasures are neglected, there is a risk of substantial token losses—on the order of 80,000 yen per fraudulent account.While fraud related to free trials offered by companies is on the rise, Stripe has begun offering features to prevent the abuse of free trials. The company reports that it has blocked over 3.3 million high-risk free trial sign-ups in the past month.
Furthermore, the company has begun offering fraud prevention features for pay-as-you-go billing. It states that it provides robust real-time defenses through Stripe Radar’s fraud prevention API (Radar Pro) and Stripe Billing’s threshold control features.
In addition, Smart Disputes is a fully automated solution that leverages AI to handle chargebacks (claims of fraudulent charges).
In addition, the company offers pay-as-you-go billing capabilities via Metronome, which is integrated with Stripe Billing. This allows for real-time measurement of token consumption, enabling accurate billing of customers only for what they’ve used, at the exact moment of use.Furthermore, Contracts is a no-code system that manages complex B2B contracts, custom pricing, commitments (prepaid quotas), and tiered discount rules, automatically linking them to billing.Furthermore, Stripe is introducing “Stripe Console,” its first interactive (chat-based) autonomous AI agent interface powered by generative AI.
Stripe Custom Objects is a groundbreaking data extension platform that allows businesses to directly define data models, entities, and logic specific to their own operations within Stripe and manage them as native Stripe resources.
Enhancing
BaaS with Stripe Treasury Providing Embedded Capabilities with Treasury for Platforms
Stripe Treasury is a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure that programmatically embeds “bank accounts (multi-currency financial accounts)” within the Stripe system, enabling a one-stop solution for holding, transferring, and spending funds.
Instant Currency Conversion is a cash management infrastructure announced by Stripe that allows users to instantly convert and settle multi-currency payment balances within Stripe in real time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without going through external banks or currency exchange providers.It also supports payments via email, with receipts available in over 160 countries.
Agentic Finance with Treasury allows companies to entrust back-office financial tasks—such as asset management, vendor payments, and cash flow optimization—to AI agents. Stripe is also strengthening its BaaS offerings; Treasury for Platforms enables platform providers such as Wix, BigCommerce, Shopify,WooCommerce, or B2B business management SaaS providers to offer their Merchants and users bank accounts (multi-currency financial accounts) and debit cards under their own brand name through embedded finance.Additionally, Platform Growth Studio is a new recommendation engine that proposes growth strategies tailored to each business.
In partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Card, the company will begin offering “Stripe Capital” in early 2027—a product that enables businesses to quickly and smoothly secure the working capital needed for operations and growth. Business owners will be able to access the funds necessary for business growth without having to deal with cumbersome paperwork or wait for lengthy approval processes.Furthermore, the entire process is completed online, and eligible merchants will be notified individually via email and through their dashboard. Stripe says it has adopted a highly transparent pricing structure with no additional fees beyond the fixed fee disclosed at the time of application. After funds are raised, a fixed percentage linked to daily sales will be automatically deducted.
According to Daniel Heffernan, CEO of Stripe Japan, using Stripe Capital results in an additional growth rate of 27 percentage points. Furthermore, 98% of users of this service expressed a desire to take advantage of additional offers.
