Dubbed Chocom Soukin (Chocom money transfer) it is basically a way to transfer money between consumers. Why is there a need for such a service you might ask? It's because of the large net auction market in Japan.
Net auctions are C2C auctions, hosted on sites like Yahoo! Auctions and Rakuten Auction. In Japan, they're big. Estimates vary between 16.5% (PDF, Japanese) and 31.0% (PDF, Japanese) of internet users, but the Japanese just love being able to buy rarities and items from their childhood, and being able to sell valuable things that they do not use anymore.
The Japanese generally highly appreciate their privacy, and until now users had to exchange bank details to be able to finalize the transaction.They could make use of the money transfer service or the auction site but these were said to have high transaction costs (up to 6% for smaller purchases through Yahoo!).
But not anymore. With Chocom Soukin, users can send and receive money by just exchanging e-mail adresses. A payment to Chocom by creditcard or through a local ATM takes care of the rest. The costs are 3.15% per transaction, much lower than existing money transfer fees.
Some 70% of the transactions *(Japanese) involve prices lower than 3,000 yen, so this perfect for that part of the market. When customers pay a yearly fee of 500 yen, transfers between Chocom account are even free. Quite a bargain.
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