FILE PHOTO: A campaign advertising of Rakuten Pay, a QR code mobile payment system operated by Rakuten, is displayed at a coffee shop in Tokyo, Japan May 30, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato
TOKYO: When the baseball season kicked off in Japan this spring, fans of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles were faced with an inconvenience they'd never encountered before: the food and drinks stalls did not accept cash.
The team's owner, Internet commerce firm Rakuten Inc, was trying to promote its QR code mobile payment system. But the marketing ploy quickly turned out to be much more than that.
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