Happy Fourth Year Anniversary, Nudge!
Nudge's next-generation credit card "Nudge" has reached its 4-year service anniversary in September 2025, while the company has implemented various feature expansions to enhance the user experience over the past year.
Background and Mission
Japan has high trust in and acceptance of cash compared to other developed countries, and has built a convenient society where people can live without utilizing financial services. However, this also creates various "opportunity losses" from not utilizing financial services.
To address this, Nudge has developed and operates a next-generation credit card that combines the security, safety, and convenience of financial services with highly entertaining experience design featuring elements like "choosing by design" and "supporting your favorites." Through this approach, Nudge is working toward realizing a world where people naturally integrate financial services into their daily lives.
Under this mission, Nudge has added various Japan-first innovations to its cloud-native credit card service platform "Nudge Platform," enabling not only further enhancement of the user experience but also new value co-creation with diverse partners.
Expanding Financial Experiences Through "Fun"
Expansion of Digital Benefits
Nudge Card has introduced a unique system allowing users to earn various exclusive benefits based on card usage. Benefits feature digital-first design, including randomly earned items via gacha-style mechanics and benefits obtained through the built-in NFT wallet in the app.
The new benefit provision system utilizing NFTs allows users who achieve specific conditions to acquire limited items and rights, in addition to distributing digital content such as images, audio, and video. By treating NFTs like tickets, the system enables more flexible condition-setting, allowing users to connect with real events and external services without sharing user information.
Nudge has also newly added features including goal-setting mechanisms unique to each club and limited-time benefits, expanding experiences where users can share the same enjoyment together.
"Oshi Pay" - Payment Notifications Personalized to Your Favorites
"Oshi Pay" is a feature enabling users to receive payment notifications via messages or voice of their favorite celebrity or personality immediately after using the card (patent pending). The feature was born from user requests on social media asking for messages from their favorites every time they shop.
For the official card of "Shinako," a popular Harajuku-style creator particularly popular with Gen Z, payment notifications featuring Shinako's signature phrase "Shinago!" have been introduced. Accompanying the audio, 26 types of exclusive images viewable nowhere else are randomly displayed.
For the "Yamagata Railway Card," a credit card designed after the Yamagata Railway Flower Nagai Line and aimed at railway enthusiasts, payment notifications feature a train whistle sound. Along with the audio, scenic photographs of railway heritage sites and seasonal landscapes along the railway line are randomly displayed.
"Custom Credit Card" - Creating One-of-a-Kind Credit Cards
"Custom Credit Card" is a service allowing users to create original card designs. By customizing cards with photos uploaded by users or pre-designed stamps, users can create unique one-of-a-kind credit cards. This system has already enabled multiple world-first initiatives.
For example, through a partnership with HIKKY, Nudge launched "My Avatar Card," the world's first credit card allowing users to use their own 3D avatar as the card design. Original designs created by users' unique ideas, such as designs wrapping around the IC chip, have also become trending topics on social media.
With VTuber Hano Amakawa, Nudge held the world's first YouTube live-linked card issuance event. Users could capture screenshots during the live broadcast and use them directly as card designs, creating major excitement.
Additionally, "Neko Ripa Card" allows users to create credit cards featuring their favorite cat photos, with 0.35% of transaction amounts automatically donated to cat rescue activities, enabling users to support cat welfare while shopping. The card has gained popularity as combining design appeal with social contribution.
Multiple Card Designs for a Single Card Number
Unlike traditional credit cards that assign one number to one card, Nudge Card enables issuing multiple cards with different designs using a single card number. This allows users to select from over 300 designs and issue as many cards as desired, enjoying designs like changing outfits in a fashion sense.
Additionally, while Nudge previously provided display-only storage cards with physical cards, the company has added a card collection viewing feature in the app to enable enjoying both real and digital versions. By setting a "favorite card," users can freely switch virtual card designs in the app.
Support for Domestic First Yen-Denominated Stablecoin "JPYC" Payment
Nudge Card has added stablecoin "JPYC payment" as one of its repayment methods under "Repay anytime, any amount." Nudge is the first domestic service to support credit card repayment using the yen-denominated stablecoin "JPYC." This enables shopping at over 150 million VISA member stores worldwide using stablecoins.
Fourth Domestic Certified Comprehensive Credit Purchase Brokerage Business
Nudge has obtained certification as a "Certified Comprehensive Credit Purchase Brokerage Business" (Certification Number: (Cert.) No. 4), the fourth such certification in Japan. This license acquisition enables providing credit lines exceeding 100,000 yen in addition to previous small-amount lending, promoting service development that makes credit cards "more convenient and trustworthy" for first-time users.
Platform Supporting Evolution: "Nudge Platform"
Proprietary Cloud-Native Infrastructure
Supporting these next-generation credit card experiences is "Nudge Platform," the company's proprietary credit card service platform was developed from scratch using a cloud-native architecture.
Traditional financial systems typically face difficulty in flexible response when adding features or making modifications due to their large system-wide impact. Nudge, leveraging the characteristics of cloud-native design, rapidly implements new features in response to user feedback and usage patterns.
Over four years since service launch, development has continued under this design philosophy. Currently, the smartphone app is updated every two weeks, while web and API services are updated twice or more weekly, continuously evolving the service.
Form Distribution Features for Various Purposes
The app implements flexible form distribution features capable of accommodating diverse uses including surveys, applications, and resource requests. This feature has also been enhanced.
Form formats can now flexibly specify not only item types such as text and multiple-choice questions but also response periods. Users are approached via push notifications, and results can be confirmed in real-time on the management screen. The survey results obtained can be analyzed in combination with behavioral information such as transaction data, deepening user understanding from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives.
Additionally, cashback-enabled surveys are possible. For example, when implementing a survey about New Year's money (otoshidama) usage during the New Year season, valid responses from over 5,000 users were obtained within five days. This demonstrates an effective mechanism encouraging active user participation.
Expanding Future Financial Experiences with Diverse Partners
Going forward, leveraging its proprietary credit card service platform "Nudge Platform," Nudge will expand mechanisms enabling diverse partners to design and provide card experiences tailored to their own brands and fan communities.
Through this expansion, Nudge aims to deploy the secure payment infrastructure and entertainment-focused experience design the company has cultivated across various domains, working with partners and users alike to advance the mission of "creating future financial experiences through individual action."
Norbert Gehrke
