Simple Payment
The simple payment service business was the heart of fintech.
In the past, people paid with cash. Then, somewhere along the way, cash was replaced by credit cards, and now the market was evolving once again, this time into simple payment services.
Credit card transactions were complicated, in truth. Between the acquiring bank, the issuing bank, and VAN providers, fees piled up at every stage.
Simple payments stripped much of that process away, raising convenience while lowering fees.
Innovation was never necessarily something grand.
Turning food that couldn’t be delivered into food that could, making reservations for all kinds of services effortless, or making payments easier—those were all forms of innovation.
Because the market was so enormous, big tech companies entered it, and startups sprang up like weeds after rain.
One of the best-known companies in that crowd was America’s PayPal.
Built by a group of men in their twenties, PayPal was sold only four years later to eBay, then the largest e-commerce company in the world, for $1.5 billion.
After that, transaction volume exploded, and PayPal’s market cap grew to eighty times what it had been then, reaching $120 billion.
So did the founders regret selling PayPal so cheaply?
Not at all.
Once they’d become millionaires, they used that money to start new companies of their own, and each of them struck gold on a scale even larger than PayPal.
Among them was Allen Everhart, the founder of Tisla and SpaceZ.
They came to be known as the PayPal Mafia, and they completely redrew the map of America’s IT industry.
Then where had simple payment services developed most fully?
Surprisingly, China.
In China, people used GeniePay, created by GenieBaba, and WeChant Pay, created by WeChant, in their everyday lives. With nothing more than a QR code, they could pay and transfer money however they liked, without ever touching cash.
Because people no longer carried cash, even street vendors accepted simple payments, and beggars went so far as to hold out QR codes when asking for money.
GeniePay and WeChant Pay spread across the world on the backs of Chinese tourists.
Any business that wanted to sell to Chinese customers couldn’t afford to refuse them, so in duty-free shops and around Myeong-dong, it was easy to find merchants that accepted GeniePay and WeChant Pay.
South Korea, by contrast, was far behind in this area.
The reason was that its banking and credit card networks were already so well developed.
Anyone could get a credit card without much trouble, and because cards were accepted everywhere, people could get through life just fine without a service like simple payment.
But the tide of an era couldn’t be resisted forever.
Since simple payments had several advantages over credit cards, they were steadily spreading in Korea as well.
Vice President Yang Ja-eun looked slightly startled when she asked me,
“You mean you want us to enter the simple payment service business?”
“Yes.”
The simple payment market was growing at a truly explosive pace.
Among Korean fintech startups, the most successful one, PassPay, had already reached an enterprise value of nearly 10 trillion won. That was more than the combined value of every affiliate in DA Financial Group.
She thought for a moment, then said,
“I know simple payments are the trend. DA Financial Group has already partnered with several simple payment services as well.”
Because finance dealt with money, it was heavily regulated by the government.
That let non-financial companies push into the payments market while the financial sector, shackled by regulation, couldn’t respond properly.
When IT companies and retailers entered a traditional financial business like payment services, it meant they were taking away revenue.
President Ahn Ho-jung said cautiously,
“With competition this fierce, it probably won’t be easy to make a profit.”
The items I thought were good, other people inevitably thought were good too.
IT companies, financial firms, startups, and even retailers had all jumped into the fight.
There were dozens of “something-something Pay” services in Korea alone. But only a tiny handful of them were profitable; most were just burning money.
“This isn’t a matter of profit. It’s a matter of survival. Right now, a number of players are competing, but once a particular platform dominates the market, it’ll already be too late. For now, fintech companies are keeping their heads down and asking financial firms for cooperation, but once the balance shifts, they’ll start lining people up instead, setting terms and conditions of their own. And most of the profit will go straight into their pockets.”
At my words, Vice President Yang Ja-eun’s expression tightened a little.
As the next chairwoman of DA Financial Group, she understood better than anyone how serious that was.
“If we build the service around a stablecoin, we can differentiate ourselves clearly from existing simple payment services. Penny is specialized for payments and remittances, so it can raise transaction speed and convenience while driving fees even lower. And because it’s a cryptocurrency, there’s no need to go through the banking network. That means it can be used anywhere without having to partner with a local bank.”
In other words, it could enter any country with ease.
Stablecoins had originally been created to make transactions and remittances more convenient, but in reality, most of them ended up being used for cryptocurrency speculation.
But Penny was different.
Through the companies tied to Snow Crash, we were gradually broadening where it could be used.
In particular, thanks to the huge success of the Legend Games Store, it had become widely known among gamers, and the number of electronic wallets had skyrocketed.
This was the right time to launch a simple payment service using Penny.
We would only put in the deposits and issue the Penny. How others chose to use it would be up to them.
It was no different from building a service around dollars without needing a partnership with the Federal Reserve.
The cloud infrastructure Snow Crash had built would eventually lead into the metaverse platform Pangaea, and Penny would become the reserve currency of that virtual world.
Later on, simple payment services based on Penny would spring up everywhere, so the earlier we moved and captured the market, the better.
I asked Sung Yoon-ah,
“What do you think, Yoon-ah?”
She thought it over carefully.
“A simple payment service based on a stablecoin... I think it sounds good.”
I nodded.
“Then how about you take charge of it?”
At my words, Sung Yoon-ah looked stunned.
“Huh? Me? I’m the one who’ll do it?”
“We’ll invest and support it with a 70 percent stake from our side.”
That meant we’d be taking seventy percent of the equity.
In return, DA Financial Group would shoulder much less of the initial burden and receive the backing of Snow Crash’s powerful infrastructure.
Vice President Yang Ja-eun smiled.
“That really is a good proposal.”
It might be taken for granted that Korean chaebol families inherited management rights, but in the end, they still needed the support of other shareholders.
That was why, when the time came to hand over the group, they always funneled performance to the heir.
Entering a new business was a fine way to improve those numbers. Just by joining hands with Continue Capital and launching the project, the market would react positively.
I said confidently,
“If we nurture it well, it’ll grow into something bigger than DA Securities, DA Bank, and DA Card combined.”
After the conversation ended, Sung Yoon-ah and I stepped outside.
It was already time to leave work. People coming out of the building headed straight for the subway station, and the roads were packed with cars.
“Want to take a walk?”
“Sure.”
We walked toward the Han River.
Maybe because the weather was so nice, there were plenty of people there too. We bought a can of beer each and sat down on a bench.
Being close to the Han River was one of DA Securities’ advantages.
When I first joined the company, I’d dreamed of working out there after hours, or drinking a beer by the river after work.
But once I actually became an office worker, I was too busy going home and sleeping to do any of that.
“Were you serious about what you said earlier?”
“About what?”
“That a simple payment service could grow bigger than the whole DA Financial Group.”
I nodded.
“Yes. That’s how big the simple payment market is. And it’s only going to get bigger.”
Fish couldn’t grow beyond the size of the pond they lived in. If you wanted to grow as large as possible, you had to swim in big water.
“And you really meant it when you said I should handle it?”
“Of course. We’re investing real money in this. Did you think I was joking?”
I looked at her and went on,
“Besides, wouldn’t it be hard for you to keep working at the company in the ordinary way anyway?”
She was part of the chaebol family that was DA Financial Group.
But even if you were born into a conglomerate, if you didn’t hold management rights, you were just a rich person with a lot of money. That was why brothers and sisters fought each other so viciously over the heir’s seat.
If Sung Yoon-ah’s mother hadn’t become the successor, she could have lived a fairly ordinary life herself.
But because some rookie employee had set off the Primus Fund scandal, Yang Jeong-uk, the original heir, had been shoved aside, and her mother had ended up taking over the group.
Thanks to that, she had become the only daughter of the next chairwoman.
I could read the atmosphere from the way her former colleagues had treated her earlier.
Her superiors probably did the same.
At least for now, her mother still hadn’t taken the chairwoman’s seat.
Once Vice President Yang Ja-eun formally became chairwoman, Sung Yoon-ah would probably find it hard to keep working there, no matter what she wanted.
So before that happened, she needed to find her own role.
“Do you think I can do it?”
“Who knows? I don’t.”
At my answer, she looked a little flustered.
“What? You told me to try it without even thinking about whether I’d be good at it?”
“How would I know if I haven’t seen you do it yet?”
“That’s strange. For some reason, I feel like you’d know anything, Miru.”
“Well...”
Even if I’d regressed, there was no way I could know things that hadn’t happened yet.
“But one thing is certain.”
“What is?”
“If you do it well, you’ll definitely succeed.”
I knew that well, because I’d actually seen it succeed.
“I’ll help you too, so give it a try.”
At my words, she clenched both fists.
“Okay. I’ll do my best.”
“Good.”
For some reason, I had a feeling she’d do well.
Sung Yoon-ah smiled at me.
“I’m really glad I met you, Miru.”
I smiled back and nodded.
“So am I.”
She held out the canned beer in her hand.
“Here. Let’s make a toast.”
We tapped our cans together lightly.
Then we drank our beer while watching the sunset.
“For the business to move smoothly, I should meet one person.”
“Who?”
When I told her the name, Sung Yoon-ah’s eyes widened in shock.
“Huh? What did you say?”
Yang Jeong-uk, the eldest son of Chairman Yang Hyeon-seong of DA Financial Group.
He was currently at the DA Financial Research Institute, one of DA Financial Group’s unlisted affiliates. The reason he’d been exiled to a place that had nothing to do with the group’s core business was the Primus Fund fiasco.
That incident had completely changed his fate.
All of this is because of that bastard. If not for him, then...
Even so, he hadn’t given up.
I can’t retreat like this. Not ever.
He had been going from major shareholder to major shareholder, pleading for support so he could take his group back.
Just as a single mistake had blown him away, there was no rule saying his sister couldn’t suffer the same fate.
It’s too early to give up. A chance will come. It has to.
Unlike him, who had been groomed as the heir from an early age, his sister had only suddenly become the successor. That meant she was bound to make mistakes.
If he seized the moment when that happened, he could take the group back.
Yang Jeong-uk refused to let go of that thread of hope, however thin it was.
But then...
The instant he met one man, that thread snapped.
Yang Jeong-uk stared in shock at the young man standing before him and blurted out, “You—how dare you come here? Do you even know where this is!?”