GMO Financial Gate, Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, President & Chief Executive Officer: Kentaro Sugiyama, hereinafter referred to as GMO-FG), Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company, Limited (Headquarters: Koto-ku, Tokyo, President: Yukihiko Onishi, hereinafter referred to as Sumitomo Mitsui Card), SMBC GMO PAYMENT (Headquarters: Koto-ku, Tokyo, President: Yasutaka Tanaka, hereinafter referred to as SGP) and payment in Asia Soft Space (Headquarters: Kuala Lumpur, CEO: Joel Tay, hereinafter referred to as "Soft Space"), a Malaysian fintech company that provides services, will start offering "stera tap" to merchants for iPhone touch payment that can handle contactless payment. This makes contactless payment handling an easy, secure, and privacy-preserving experience with a single iPhone.

On May 16, 2024, GMO-FG, Sumitomo Mitsui Card, SGP and Soft Space will begin accepting seamless, secure, face-to-face contactless payment via iPhone touch payment for merchants in Japan. iPhone Touch payment is a touch payment that includes contactless credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets, and the iPhone and stera tap iOS apps ^*1 It is only accepted to use the solution. No additional hardware or payment devices are required. At checkout, merchants can securely payment using NFC technology by prompting customers to pay with Apple Pay using their iPhone or Apple Watch, contactless credit or debit cards, or other digital wallets. Touch payment on iPhone uses the built-in features of iPhone to help keep business and customer data safe. When payment is processed, Apple does not store the card number on the device or on Apple's servers.

Although the spread of cashless payment is expanding in Japan, the penetration rate of cashless payment to small and medium-sized businesses called SMEs is only about 60%. The challenge here is said to be the time and cost of introducing payment terminals.

iPhone Touch payment is a payment solution that allows you to start using it with a simple application and setup without incurring the cost of installing a device. Instead of purchasing a dedicated payment device as in the past, you can quickly turn your iPhone into a touch-payment device by installing a dedicated app on your iPhone and introduce cashless payment. You can use "stera tap" by downloading the "stera tap" iOS app and contract with SGP. Merchants can accept contactless payment using the iPhone ^*2 and stera tap iOS apps. Sumitomo Mitsui Card and SGP offer stera tap at the industry's lowest level of 2.70% ~ in order to provide businesses that support businesses in the city, mainly small and medium-sized businesses, with a fee that makes it easy to introduce Credit card payment, and until November 30, 2024, Visa and Mastercard® payment We are running a cashback campaign ^*3 in which the commission is 1.98% in real terms. In addition, you can use Visa and Mastercard Touch payment transactions in as little as 15 minutes from the time of application.

• *1 The "stera tap" iOS app is provided by GMO-FG.
• *2 Requires an iPhone XS or later device and the latest version of iOS.
• *3 After paying a payment fee (2.70%) for Visa and Mastercard sales, we will return 0.72% of the sales at a later date. In addition, the maximum amount of cashback will be 100,000 yen within the period. If the amount equivalent to 0.72% of sales exceeds 100,000 yen, the payment fee will not be "1.98% in real terms".