Payment Services: Reports that SoftBank will acquire former Sony Payment Services

Research evidence excerpt

Payment Services: Reports that SoftBank will acquire former Sony Payment Services

J P M O R G A N Asia Pacific Equity Research

28 July 2026

Payment Services

Reports that SoftBank will acquire former Sony

On July 27, Bloomberg and other media outlets reported that SoftBank is in the Japan Equity Research

final stage of negotiations to acquire SP.LINKS (formerly Sony Payment

Insurance, Securities, Diversified

Services). It had been reported on June 3 that Blackstone, which holds 80% of Financials

SP.LINKS shares, was moving ahead with the sale process and that SoftBank was AC Koki Sato

among the bidders that had progressed to the second round of bidding. If the media

(81-3) 6736-8609

reports are correct, the addition of SP.LINKS to SB Payment Service, a payment koki.sato@jpmorgan.com

service provider under the SoftBank umbrella with annual transaction value in Yuka Azami

excess of ¥10 trillion, would expand SoftBank’s online payments business to a size (81-3) 6736-8619

comparable with industry leader GMO Payment Gateway (3769) in terms of yuka.azami@jpmorgan.com

processing amount. JPMorgan Securities Japan Co., Ltd.

• Industry trends: According to a 2026 survey by Yano Research Institute, the

amount of payments processed online in FY2025 (via payment service

providers [PSP], estimated value) was about ¥46 trillion. GMO Payment

Gateway accounted for around ¥13 trillion of this amount (includes

transactions handled by GMO Epsilon for the 12-month period through March

2026). When SoftBank announced FY2025 results, it said that SB Payment

Service had exceeded its transaction value target of ¥10 trillion. Although

SP.LINKS has not disclosed its transaction value for recent years, based on its

sales of ¥9.4 billion in FY2025, we estimate it was around ¥2–3 trillion.