March 13, 2019
Japan Fair Trade Commission
I. Purpose of Survey
At present, the majority of the amounts of cashless payments in Japan utilize credit cards and the amounts of payments using credit cards are growing. Growth Strategy 2017 (approved by the cabinet on June 9, 2017) and Growth Strategy 2018 (approved by the cabinet on June 15, 2018) include the target of “doubling the cashless payment settlement ratio, to about 40% within the next 10 years (by June 2027)”. Therefore, it is expected that the amounts of payments using credit cards will continue to increase in the future.
Under these conditions, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) has initiated a survey on the credit card market in order to identify whether or not there are trade practices in the credit card market which are likely to be problematic under the Antimonopoly Act and competition policy.
II. Survey Subjects and Methods
1 Survey Subjects
The credit card market
2 Survey Methods
This survey was conducted from February 2018 to February 2019 by means of the following methods:
(1) Written Surveys
The JFTC requested 5 payment network operators (responses: 5, response rate: 100%), 258 credit card companies (responses: 226, response rate: approximately 88%), and 2,000 shops (responses: 723, response rate: approximately 36%) to submit reports.
(2) Internet Survey
The JFTC conducted an internet survey of 2,000 consumers who have credit cards.
(3) Interviews
The JFTC conducted interviews on 5 payment network operators, 14 credit card companies, 8 shops and 14 experts, etc.
III. Survey Results
Please refer to the report and its summary.
＊Every announcement is tentative translation.
Please refer to the original text written in Japanese for more details.
